An Unexpected Gift
by Laina Inverse
Summary: Raiha, Link, Ganon, and Zelda have settled into their lives as a poly grouping, and Raiha herself is pregnant with twins. She is also trying very hard to get help to clean up the ancient Archives, and sort the library as well. An old, unsettlingly familiar face makes an appearance, and suddenly a new twist is thrown into what was thought to be a stable life.
1. One

One

It had taken more time than she'd thought necessary for them to understand what, _specifically_ she was trying to get them to understand. For places that were concerned with spreading skills and proclaiming intelligence, both the Collegia and the Academia of Hyrule could be quite short-sighted and downright idiotic at times.

Really, Raiha had wanted this nonsense done with before she became too encumbered by her pregnant belly to do her work, but that was annoyingly not the case. She was less than a month shy of her projected due date for the twins when the first of the thirty candidates finally began to trickle into the palace of Hyrule.

Fifteen men and women from the Academia, and then fifteen from the Collegia arrived over the course of a week. While the two schools proclaimed no dislike of one another, the students seemed to not take the same view, and either openly snubbed one another, or made snide remarks.

Granted, it wasn't _everyone_ , but the reports she was getting from the observing guards—And Link and Ganon—were not giving her a good impression of the maturity level of these scholars. At least, not all of them. Some seemed to be conducting themselves in an acceptable manner.

Today was going to be their big test, however. They were all to gather in the library, and wait for her. They weren't to wander into the stacks, or look at the papers on the large desk that would be in the area they were gathering in. They were to drop their letters of introduction into the basket, and then either sit or stand, and wait for her.

Raiha smiled a little to herself; they wouldn't know that she would already be there, invisible, and watching from the desk itself. This was her chance to personally observe them, and make her own choices. She wasn't actually _interested_ in the letters, no. She had done that mostly just to make sure she wouldn't get swamped with candidates that weren't up to her standards.

In truth, she doubted many of them would _be_ up to her standards. The library was one thing; it held current and recent past history. These books were old, some of them well in excess of five hundred years, but they weren't _ancient_ history. Those books were in the archives, and she would be damned if she was going to let any of them wander through there without being heavily vetted first. By her. But that would take more than her first impressions, that would take interviews, and those were going to take time.

She sighed a little, leaning back against the desk, and absently rubbed at her stomach as one of the twins kicked vigorously. She could hardly wait to have them out of her body and into the world where she wouldn't have to be the _only_ person caring for them.

Raiha checked the time, then scooted back a little on the desk as the library doors opened, well out of the way of the basket where the letters were meant to go. The first few didn't so much walk as rush in; clearly trying to be The First to prove their school was better. It didn't surprise her that they were a handful of men in their mid-thirties.

The less enthusiastic filtered in behind them, ranging in age from one man in his mid-sixties, to a girl who couldn't be more than sixteen, who was staring around herself in awe and delight. Raiha felt a faint smile curve her own mouth as memory tugged at her; she must have looked similar to that when first seeing the royal library.

There were only a handful of women, and this was not entirely pleasing to Raiha; men were difficult to work with at the best of times, and that included the two male mates she had. Those four scholars who had each tried to be first for their place of study all held an air of superiority that was irksome at best. They hadn't even produced the letters she'd requested, and had specifically told the guard escort to mention.

The teenage girl was the first to remember, and though she seemed nervous, she quickly approached the desk and put her letter in the available basket. Her curiosity led her to peer at the papers, but after a moment she ducked her head guiltily and moved back to instead peer at the nearest shelves that weren't _technically_ off-limits. Raiha smiled a little, mentally applauding the girls' tactics. A few others came forward in her wake; a woman who was in her forties at the youngest, two young men who seemed to be in their twenties, both looking rather shy and diffident, followed by another woman who was possibly around thirty.

And then Raiha saw one who made her freeze, barely breathing.

He was about as tall as Zelda was, maybe an inch or two taller, built very much like a dancer. He moved like one too, lithe and graceful, and a little sensual as well. His hair was a dark blonde, styled with long bangs over one side of his face; his one visible eye was crimson, and at a glance she assumed him to be somewhere in his mid-twenties.

 _Sheik_.

Her breath caught in her throat, but after a long, paralyzed moment, reality reasserted itself; it _could_ be Sheik, yes, but more likely the young man simply had some Sheikah heritage in his family tree. From what she could glimpse, the covered eye seemed to be heavily scarred, which explained some of why he was moving cautiously; limited depth perception in an unknown place was a tricky thing to navigate. Besides, even if it was Sheik, it couldn't be the one she missed. His place had been at the other Zelda's side, with no connection to this particular time.

He hesitated near the desk, and despite herself, she couldn't keep from staring as he pulled out the letter and reached for the basket. He spoke, and it startled her enough that she almost missed his very quiet words.

"I remember."

Two words. Two simple, innocent words. Raiha almost lost the invisibility spell right there with just how pole-axed she was. The young man didn't seem inclined to wait for an answer, however, and dropped his letter—no, _two_ letters—into the basket before going to join the sixteen-year-old girl. They started up a low conversation that Raiha could tell was brimming with scholarly enthusiasm.

As the shock wore off, she smiled in a pained manner. Here she was, getting her hopes up again; she really ought to know better by now. This would need to be carefully looked into first. Starting with that second letter, which she silently slipped from the basket and tucked into her vest; she would look at it later, after this mess was concluded.

It wasn't a thin letter by any means; it seemed to stretch the envelope it was in, and she couldn't help but wonder at its contents. What would it tell her; the thing she most wanted, or nothing more than what she already suspected? Either way, she didn't dare start it here.

With a mental sigh, she pulled her attention back towards the remaining candidates. A handful more seemed to remember their letters were supposed to go into the basket, and as she allowed the time to pass, she saw the four 'eager' males alternating between glaring at each other, scowling at the door, and speculatively eyeing the stacks they were supposed to refrain from entering.

She was almost tempted to let them try and sneak in; she'd put the spell in place for a reason, after all. Nothing that would harm the library, but they would learn the penalties for breaking the rules rather quickly.

As she debated, one of them decided that her word—her explicit instructions—wasn't something he had to obey, and stepped over the invisible line. He was promptly bounced back by a wave of force that made him stagger. His muttered oath, and the quiet snickers of the two men that must have belonged to the opposing school grabbed the attention of several others, who turned to watch curiously.

He scowled, and tried again. The next hit was not as gentle. At the third attempt, he ended up bowled over on the floor, dazed, and there was some open, if soft, laughter. He flushed angrily, shoving away the helping hands of his friend, and got back to his feet on his own.

Raiha shook her head a little, dropped her invisibility, and got off the desk as he tried for round four.

"The more effort you put into breaking the rules, the harder the spell is going to hit you," she said calmly, making the entire group startle. "Push hard enough, and it'll even knock you out. When I give a specific instruction, I expect it to be _obeyed,_ you understand."

The young men—they were certainly young in comparison, really—stared at her in befuddlement, even as the rest of the people shifted around so that she could get through with minimal fuss. She silently appreciated the care; her pregnant stomach did make for unwieldy feelings as the best of times.

"What's the big idea?!" the one finally demanded, glaring at her suspiciously.

"The 'big idea' is seeing how well you follow instructions," Raiha replied mildly. "As funny as it would be to let you get the concussion you plainly deserve, Zelda made me promise to interfere before that part. She said it would set a bad precedent if I allowed possible helpers to hurt themselves by their own foolishness."

She sighed a little, hands on her hips, and was faintly pleased to hear a burst of snickering at her back. A sens of humor—or at least getting _hers—_ was important for a good working relationship.

"In ay case, you, and you three as well," and she pointed at them, "are not impressing me. And as I _am_ the one you need to impress to be allowed to work here, not just visit, that's not a good thing."

"Y-you're Lady Raiha?" one of the other candidates stammered a little. At a guess, she thought it was the sixteen-year-old. It _sounded_ like a younger voice, at least.

Raiha turned, facing the whole group, and nodded, relaxing her stance into something less antagonistic. They may have been bored, but they had listened instead of ignoring the explicit instructions the guards had given them.

"I am. No doubt you've heard interesting things about me," her smile was sharp, but wry. "Most of it is true, but if you want specifics, you'll have to ask another time. Right _now,_ I want the candidates who remembered to put their letters into the basket to go over and stand by the desk. As for the rest of you, I'll nullify the spells, and you can explore the library until I'm done with the smaller group."

"How will you get everyone back, m'lady? It's a large library."

She glanced slightly in the direction of the Sheik look-alike, nodding acknowledgment of the question, even as another sharp smile crossed her face.

"Oh, I have my ways. Now. There's a baker's dozen of letters in that basket, so the thirteen of you that listened, I want you around the desk. The rest of you, shoo."

"I'm not going to be told to 'shoo' by some desert female!"

Raiha turned back to the belligerent scholar. And sighed. He could have picked a more _creative_ insult. She was still far too pleased by the recent rediscovery of her people to find something so paltry to be irritating. And her quiet delight held nothing on Ganon's mixture of relief and renewed grief; he didn't dare reveal himself to them, after all. Tales of the Demon King were history to their people, not myth or legend.

But that was a consideration for another time, and she dragged her thoughts back to the moment with a mild shake of her head.

"Look, _you_ rushed in here, _didn't_ put your letter in the basket, and decided that _my instructions_ didn't have to be followed. Now you're _arguing_ with me. Keep it up, and I'll _ban_ you from my library."

"You can't do that!" he protested.

She smiled. It was not a _nice_ smile.

"Wanna bet?"

The words were so mild they were an obvious threat. The scholar, while clearly full of his own self-importance, was not entirely stupid, and after a moment he backed down. Raiha nodded a little, and made a slight gesture, releasing the woven spell with the faintest of pops that made a couple of them jump.

"Go on. There's plenty to look at and if you're _extremely_ careful with the stuff in the back, you might be allowed to touch some things. Ask one of the librarians first; they're the ones in the blue robes with the white belts."

Slowly, the group dispersed, the four that had been so antagonistic towards one another setting out in different directions under her sharp eye. Satisfied for the moment, she turned back to the thirteen people who had waited by the desk.

They were a fairly mixed group; more women than men, which was pleasing, including the teenage girl, and the older women. The Sheik look-alike was there too, and she thought about the letter tucked into the front of her vest; the corner of it was poking her rather tender breasts, reminding her of its existence and how she both wanted, and feared, to read it.

"All right. As you know, my name is Raiha, the royal sage. Just Raiha is fine; despite Zelda's gifts of title, I've never really been into the formal side of things. If you _must,_ you can use Lady Raiha."

She offered them a smile that was less sharp and more welcoming.

"Now, I asked you lot to stay because you heeded my instructions. What that means for _you_ is a short side trip to the Archives. Touch nothing; even near the entrance there are some fragile items."

The excited squeak from the teenager made her chuckle a little; _no one_ was allowed into the archives without Royal Permission at the least. More recently, Royal Permission and Royal _Sage_ permission, because Raiha was quite serious about the fragile state of things. While she had laid a blanket preservation spell over the entire room—a spell that had taken two days and the help of her children, which had so far lasted for five years—it wasn't meant to be a permanent solution. Some things were so old as to be irrelevant, while other items had enough power that they needed to be moved with care to a much more protective area. It was a large job, and she needed help if it was ever going to be anywhere _near_ completed.

"Is this another test, m'lady?"

Raiha's grin was quick and sharp.

"Everything is a test, child," she said dryly, leading the way out of the library. "But this one isn't so hard. I want to see how you all handle sorting old things. Things that may crumble if you're too rough, or bite if you don't hold them just so."

Thirteen men and women followed her out the door and down the halls. Raiha was no tour guide, but then, these people were scholars. They probably knew more about the palace than the average layman. If they pleased her enough that she kept them, they'd be making this trip on a regular basis.

"You're not... worried about leaving the rest behind?" the teenage girl asked after they had crossed two hallways.

"Nope."

"Why not?"

"Because I only disabled _one_ spell."

Raiha chuckled a little darkly, and the girl squeaked.

"W... will anyone get hurt?"

"If they're smart and desist when the spell thumps them, they'll be fine," she replied. "If they insist on being trouble, my librarians have spelled crystals they can use to contact me, or imprison the foolish if they don't want to bother me."

"...wooooow... you're... You're really good at magic, huh?"

Hearing the wistfulness, Raiha gave the girl a small smile.

"I've had many many years to get this good," she said lightly. "If any of you show signs of burgeoning magical talent, I'll arrange to train you."

The girls squeaked again, and this time Raiha's soft laugh was gentler.

"Rai!"

She stopped, glancing down the hallway as Link scampered up to her, smiling warmly at him. He smiled cheerfully back, though he refrained from the hug he plainly wanted to give; as informal as she was, she was still not very comfortable with casual contact. Knowing this, he always sought permission first, even silently. His restraint made her smile faintly, and she gave his cheek a kiss. He beamed, and she heard a few quite murmurs from the group, which she chose to ignore for the moment.

"Yes?"

"Zelda said to remind you that you're supposed to meet with the doctor and the healer after lunch if I saw you," he said, standing up a little straighter. "And also that you're not supposed to be too mean to your candidates."

Raiha snickered as the small group behind her whispered amongst themselves.

"I'm being reasonable," she replied. "No one's been knocked out yet. Don't you have a passel of trainees to work with?"

"Gan's got them for the moment."  
"Ahhh, so really, Ganon was being fussy and you offered to come check on me if he worked with your newbies for a few minutes, in an effort to avoid him possibly blowing something up again."

Link blushed, and looked a little embarrassed. Raiha's amused expression was a little bit sharp, but she decided to take no insult. There really wasn't much point anyways.

"It gets him out of more paperwork too," he admitted sheepishly.

She snorted, and gave his shoulder a light smack.

"Well, I have been reminded, and I am perfectly fine, so shoo."

"Don't forget to _come_ to lunch," he said, gingerly poking her in the shoulder.

"I am not _that_ bad. Besides, the twins wouldn't let me forget to eat."

That got a delighted smile as he glanced down at her belly, then back up at her.

"Go on now, back to work, featherhead," she said gently, giving his shoulder a light push. "I'll see you later."

"Okay!"

And off he trotted, plainly pleased from the way he was moving. Raiha rolled her eyes in fond amusement, and took the turn that would take her and her entourage to the archives. He really was a protective dork, and that was part of what she loved about him. At least he didn't hover. _Ganon_ hovered. She had kicked him a couple of times for it; being pregnant didn't mean she was incapable.

"That was Sir Link, the Queen's Champion," she heard one of the older women murmur. "The one who saved the realm when that strangeness happened ten years ago!"

"I though he was in a relationship with her majesty?" was the uncertain response, this one from an older male.

"Maybe they're just really good friends," came a third voice, another one of the women.

"Or perhaps it's no one's business but theirs," came a fourth voice. Sheik's voice.

There was a series of embarrassed coughs as Raiha glanced over her shoulder, raising an eyebrow in question. None of the ones who had been gossiping would meet her eye. Sheik though, caught the glance and offered a faint nod, and even fainter smile.

Raiha gave herself a slight mental shake as she faced forward again. It was hard to _not_ think of the look-alike as her former beloved. The resemblance was uncanny at best, and his words, those two quiet, simple words, still echoed in her head. As if taunting her, the letter poked her lightly through her shirt again.

Mildly irritated at herself—when did she become so easily fixated on a little thing?—she walked a bit faster down the hall. Fortunately, the group kept up.

The door that led to the archives was fairly nondescript; plain and ordinary, and prone to causing people's eyes to skim right past it as nothing worth inspecting. The last had been Raiha's doing, a small, subtle spell of misdirection. It held a seemingly ordinary lock, and no sign proclaimed the importance of the room.

She pulled a brass key out of her pocket and murmured a few quiet words in a long-forgotten tongue as she turned it in the lock. Key, password, and her own magical signature were inserted into the spells she had imbedded in the wood and metal, and it turned smoothly as though it was ordinary. She pushed open the door and stepped in, then to the side.

There was an air to the Archives that didn't exist in the library, save for back at the oldest of the useful shelves. Ancient history murmured in the room, that was kept dimmed to help prevent further aging of weathered papers. The small group filed in after her, having gone mute in awe at the sight of the biggest magical artifact in the room; the stained glass windows that depicted the story of the Triforce, and cast multicolored soft light onto the floor from no discernible source.

Well, it depicted most of the story, at least. Getting a truly accurate tale, even from her own memories, wasn't the easiest task in the world, even with magic. And she wasn't inclined towards casting big spells at the moment; whether it was possible or not to cause a miscarriage via over-use of magic, she didn't want to find out. Finishing it was just going to have to wait.

When the applicants dragged their attention away, she heard a few sounds of dismay, and chuckled a little. Despite the _air_ of history, the actual layout of the first room was a hodgepodge mess of old bookshelves stuffed to overflowing, boxes topped by other boxes, books stacked haphazardly, and a neatened corner that Raiha had been working on for the past four years. Said corner also held a half-open door leading to the next room, which looked much worse.

"It looks like my uncle's barn," the teenager opined after a long minute.

Now Raiha laughed.

"Yes, I am aware of how messy it is. Unfortunately, this is only the first of many rooms; while librarians and the royal family were aware that things needed to be remembered, there's only so much room in the library, and it's better for recent, more relevant history to be found there. Unfortunately, it was the library that got the bulk of the better treatment, while the archives... were less well tended."

"So you advertised to both the Collegia and the Academia for scholarly help?"

"Got it in one," she replied, nodding at the forty-ish woman with a dry smile. "There's plenty of old books and papers in here that the non-magically trained person can handle, and some of this is so old as to be myth at this point, so there's little reason to keep it around."

"W... what would you like us to do?"

One of the young men that was not Sheik. She smiled faintly.

"For the next fifteen minutes, you may wander around. Do _not_ touch anything if you can avoid it. Some of these items are precariously stacked, and there are layers upon layers of dust. I'd like for you to get a feel for the work you'll be doing I you accept this offer. The Archives are not a place to play, so if you'd rather work in the library, sorting things _for_ the Archives, please let me know."

There were looks exchanged, and then slowly, with great caution, the scholars began picking their individual paths through the mess. Raiha moved over to her cleared area, and the small, comfortable couch; she needed to sit again. Her ankles were starting to ache.

Pregnancy, she decided for what had to be the thousandth time, was very annoying. Plausibly worth it in the end, but _very_ annoying. She stretched carefully as she sat, and debated pulling the letter out, but doubted she could read and absorb it as fast as her imposed time limit. No, it would _still_ have to wait.

She couldn't quite decide if that made her happy or not.

It took about ten minutes before she heard something creak ominously, followed by several yelps as what sounded like loose paper whooshed and rustled down, raising a cloud of dust that sent everyone in the room to coughing. Raiha shook her head in wry amusement, and called up a light breeze to carefully clear the air.

Seven of her thirteen scholars looked rather embarrassed, not to mention dusty, and the reams of paper scattered all over the floor was testament to what had just happened.

"And that would be why I said don't touch anything," she chuckled a little. "Is anyone hurt?"

Seven sheepish head shakes were her answer, and she could hear spates of sneezing and coughing coming from the scholars who had _not_ been caught in the mess. Again she shook her head wryly.

"We may as well leave. It'll take a bit for the dust to settle. And you lot will probably need a quick shower before the midday meal to get the dust off."

They followed her without fuss out of the room, waiting as she locked it again. She returned the key to her pocket to their eyes, but really it slipped into a subset of reality. She had learned paranoia for a very good reason, after all, and the number of genuine magical artifacts stored—and undocumented—in the Archives were enough to make her especially cautious. The last thing she needed was someone getting their hands on something they couldn't control.

"Those of you who need baths may go take them, and the rest of your can return to the library until the midday hour and explore," she said lightly. "If you feel the need to tell me what you want to do, I'll return to the library this afternoon, at around three bells."

It was a gentle dismissal, but still a dismissal, and the scholars all pattered away, most talking in low, excited voices, even the dust-covered ones. Her Sheik look-alike seemed especially embarrassed by all the dust, and she suspected it was him that had accidentally misjudged distance and bumped a pile. She watched them go with a mildly amused headshake, then turned to re-enter the Archive and see just how bad it was.

It wasn't really, though the dust would need more time to settle. She sighed a little; that was decidedly the most inconvenient thing about being pregnant; there was so much she was being told to _not_ do, and cleaning up these rooms was certainly one of them. Dust and mold were certainly things she occasionally thought about, but not to the degree that the healers had told her to not.

If it wasn't for the magic, she probably wouldn't have even been allowed to set foot in the archives until after the twins were born. Which would have driven her a bit mad, yes. She whistled up her gentle wind again, and had it stir the papers carefully into some semblance of order so that people could walk and not worry about setting on the yellowed pages, before leaving and locking the door once more behind her.

Now, of course, _she_ was the one who needed a bath. And relaxing in a warm tub before lunch sounded like the perfect way to relax before allowing her lovers to fuss over her and then going to see the doctor and the healer, just to make sure the babies were all right. Even though _she_ was fairly certain—healing was a gift of hers after all—it didn't hurt to get another opinion of things.

Even if is _was_ tedious.

She shucked her dust-covered clothing the minute she had her door closed behind her, and flipped the errant, worrying letter onto her desk where she would see it after her appointments. Whether she would have the time to read it before returning to collect the wayward scholars, that was still up in the air, but she didn't want to bring it out to her family just yet. Not until she knew whether she was chasing fairy dreams, or something more.

Stepping into her bathing chamber, she pulled the cord that would start the shower of sun-warmed water so that she could get the dirt and dust off, before settling into a low pool of spell-warmed water that was the perfect temperature for her. She tipped her had back against the padded headrest and sighed faintly, running a hand absently over her stomach as one of the twins shifted. She would not, _could not,_ allow this to get to her. Whatever would happen would happen; whether it was good or bad would depend upon the people involved, and the information she still did not have.

If nothing else, it was likely to shake up the balance, more than a little, and thinking of that made her smile faintly in dry amusement. She wasn't sure how _she_ had become the semi-primary partner of all of them, and yet here she was, in the center of what could have been a notoriously difficult square, but was, instead, a triangle.

Well, it would _become_ a square if she wasn't careful. And Ganondorf would be the most vocal about it, the most irritable. Link would worry the most, and calm, serene Zelda would stand back to wait and see, like she almost always did. Raiha's lips curved in a dry smile as she considered the reactions of her lovers; if it wasn't happening to _her_ , it would almost have been amusing.

Ganon's concern would likely stem wholly from his knowledge of her, and their shared history; lifetimes spent fighting one another thanks to that shade that had possessed him had left his memories a muddle, but he knew her well enough at this point to realize how this hope and uncertainty would cause no small amount of stress. And since they _all_ knew the origins of her long life, and her immortality now, there would be wary concern directed towards the look-alike as well.

She sighed a little, and carefully, reluctantly, climbed out of the bath so that she could get dressed again. Fussing wouldn't fix this; she _had_ to read that letter, and damned if she wasn't going to do it now. She sent a polite note winging through the halls to Zelda, and another to the kitchens so that she could eat in her rooms, then sat at her desk, picked up the thick envelope, and broke the wax seal holding it closed.

The pages didn't _quite_ spill out, but the envelope didn't hold together very well after the seal was broken, and it made her smile a littler dryly. Sheik, her Sheik, had often been very laconic... but maybe this letter would she some light on the numerous questions that were bouncing around in her mind.


	2. Two

Two

 _My lady Raiha;_

 _No doubt you are alarmed, and a bit confounded by this extra missive in your basket, and by the words I plan to say in hopes that you will be near. I was a bit alarmed and confounded myself when the dreams began five years ago._

 _I am remiss. My name is Sheik Raeleigh, second son of the Countess Abrielle Raeleigh. I was named by my grandmother, who had heard tales of the ancient peoples. I apologize if the name gives you distress._

 _Approximately five years ago, give or take a few months, I began to be visited by very intense dreams, dreams that started in the Hylian Royal Palace, to which I have never set foot in. I am looking forward to doing that very soon, and hope that by writing this weeks in advance I won't somehow stumble over my own tongue when finally meeting you._

 _I digress._

 _The dreams are very vivid, my lady, and very... painful in some cases. I hope that you... know more of them, though I will recount them as thoroughly as I can for you, because I wish you to understand the depth of my remembering._

 _I was training as a Sheikah warrior under the direction of another Sheikah, an older woman named Impa. I was to be the bodyguard to the Princess Zelda, who was, in the dream, my twin sister, though the princess herself knew it not._

 _A young Gerudo girl befriended the princess when she sought to test the waters of a non-royal life, and began to visit the palace. Impa and I trained with her, and she was very skilled, if always somewhat angry, and a little lonely. The Gerudo girl was, however, strongly loyal, and very crafty..._

 _One day, the Gerudo king appeared, and the girl stopped coming. Or rather, was told not to come, for her safety. This king was a cold, evil-eyed man, and the Princess had dreams of his evil taking over the land._

 _A boy arrived, with a fairy and a green stone that he called the Kokiri Emerald and the Gerudo girl with him. She had brought him, you see, despite the danger it presented. She was always either a little foolhardy, or far braver than she gave herself credit for. I had to use some... underhanded words to make her go with the boy; I didn't want her caught by the Gerudo, or harmed by the townspeople. Not that I could say that, of course... I didn't think she would understand._

 _Things in the palace become tenser as time passes, each day is an agony of waiting and wondering. I have to go and tell her where the blue stone, the Spiritual Stone of Water is, because we didn't give her that information when we told her where the Spiritual Stone of Fire was. She was rightfully angry about that._

 _I don't see this girl again until all hell breaks loose, and then it's only from the back of a white horse as Impa and I take the princess to safety. The princess throws the Ocarina of Time, the Royal Family treasure, at the boy and Gerudo girl before they are left too far behind, and then we make for a safe place at the farthest end of the realm from the Gerudo King and his minions._

 _I am dispatched to go to the girl's aid, ordered by the Princess who fears for her friends. I go because I too fear for her safety, and find her in the Temple of Time, pale, and barely breathing. Not dead, but I thought she might be dying, so I took her to the only place I knew where I could keep her marginally safe._

 _It's not... the same Kakariko town as the one you guard, my lady, but it is there that I take her, to the house that was one Impa's own, and do everything I can to nurse her back to health. She recovers, but it is slower than I like, and I worry about when the Gerudo King will march upon this town, so close to the palace and the Market as it is._

 _When she finally wakens, I am relieved, but the story she tells me turns that relief to a cold fear that I cannot completely deny. I want her to come with me, to where the Princess is, but I cannot say this, I don't think she'll agree. She has become friends with the boy, I can tell, and she is worried about where he is._

 _She goes to live in the forest with the Kokiri children for a while; I visit only rarely, as I am involved in training, and spying. I give her news when I can, and I admit, none of it is good. The Gerudo King's power is granted by one of the legendary Triforce pieces, and it is all but bottomless. He begins a tyrannical reign that none can overthrow, though many do try. A resistance forms made of mostly Goron and Zora, but also many Hylian, and a few Gerudo who defect from fear or for other reasons._

 _Time passes, people move; like a river's flow, it never ends._

 _The Gerudo girl must move hiding places as she grows too old and tall to mix with the Kokiri. She goes to the Zora, and befriends their princess, the one she helped the boy save years before. She almost dies there as well, frozen in the ice with the Zora, and it is more luck than anything else that enables me to save her and the Zora princess. The princess takes to the river to reach the lake that has been cursed by the Evil King, and I hold the terrified girl until she is not longer terrified. She decides, without help from me, that she will stay with the Gorons._

 _It hurts her to have me put a distance there, but I am trying to be her guardian without falling in love with her. A foolish idea, as I was in love with her even before we knew what romantic love could be, but I still try, because I do not want her to be hurt._

 _When she is sixteen, I give up. She kisses me. I kiss her. I grieve these kisses because I had meant to tell her that I would not be allowed to return for six months, but at the same time I savor them, because it feels good and right, and I am tired of lying to myself about how I feel._

 _I lose her for a year. The Evil King takes the Gorons, and I fear that he has taken her too. I search and I search, but I cannot find her anywhere. I am told to stop by Impa, and I relent, reluctantly. I hold onto the hope that if the boy comes back, she will too. I pray to the goddesses with this wish, because I cannot bear the thought of her either dead, or in the hands of the Gerudo King._

 _I am not told by my shadow that she is alive and well. I am only told that I need to meet the Hero, who was one the boy, at Death Mountain, to gift him with the Bolero of Fire so that he could travel at will as needed._

 _Seeing her standing with the Hero. No longer a Gerudo girl, but a Gerudo woman. My heart stops, relieved, and then starts again as I realize that my shadow had known, and had kept this from me._

 _I apologize to her, and to the Hero. She is confused, uncertain, but bless her, forgiving. I must leave because I feel a great urge to yell at someone, but I help her first, I prevent her from falling down the ladder into the Fire Temple. I promise her that we will talk, because we_ need _to talk, but now is not the time._

 _Once I am certain she is safe with the Hero, I leave. I return to my teacher and my shadow, and exchange many harsh words with them, my voice rising in anger. How_ dare _they keep this from me. How_ dare _I not be told, I who was given the charge of her safety by my shadow who is still not to go alone to places fro fear of discovery._

 _Many harsh words._

 _I leave, not mollified by their explanation, to do the duty I was tasked, and to ensure her safety to the best of my ability._

 _I watch her, the Hero, and the Fire Sage fight the dragon, my heart in my throat at the danger she puts herself in the way of. As she slips, I go to her aid, pulling her back onto her path; I do not want her to die. I want her to live. I want her, and the Hero, to_ win _._

 _I go ahead of them, to the next place where they must travel; the air is cold, and clears my head some from the anger that still simmers in me. I am still angry at my shadow, at my teacher, but it lacks immediacy. She is alive, and she is working with the Hero. That is enough._

 _She scares me with her reckless behavior in killing the Wolfos that was meant to test the Hero, but I cannot scold her. Instead, she smiles at me, and I cannot help but relax, helping the Hero to his feet. I grant them the gift of a new song, and feel a small sense of pride and guilt; the Hero is a better ally to the woman than I am. He is there for her in the moment, and I fear that he will earn her love, and I will lose it._

 _I say nothing. I give away nothing. I treasure the smile she grants me, and take my leave._

 _My teach summons me, and I return, albeit reluctantly. She and my shadow both apologize for keeping the woman a secret, for which I am grateful, if not forgiving. My teach says something is wrong in Kakariko, and she wishes to look into it, so we go to Kakariko._

 _My shadow sneaks away after a time, and I am tempted to follow, but I remain, and pretend to be my shadow so that my teacher does not punish them; they are the vulnerable one, and yet, I see in my shadow's eyes, the desire to see the Hero again. I cannot lay blame._

 _My shadow returns with the news that they have triumphed, freeing another temple and awakening another Sage. I was not told of the woman's extensive injury, nor her necessary recovery. I learned of them later, when it was too late to be angered anew._

 _They arrived the same day the seal on the well finally shattered, and Kakariko became a battleground. She made a grand stand, brighter than anything my shadow could have attempted, but was still injured, was not able to contain the shadow. Impa sent the Hero back through time to retrieve an item long lost, and then we tended to her._

 _It was then that my shadow admitted to her previous injuries. I wanted to be angry, but I was too concerned; the Gerudo woman's pale face haunted my dreams for many nights. I tend to her, as does my teacher, but my teacher must also tend to the village, and prepare for a trip into the Sheikah temple; she knows her destiny now, and will not fight it._

 _When she wakes, I am pleased. I am relieved. And I am angry, but not at her, though no doubt it seems that way. I try to tell her what has happened in a way that will not worry her, but I forget how strongly she loves, and that she worries anyways. In the end, while she is angry with me over something she had no control over, she allows me to offer comfort and affection._

 _We talk, finally. It is complicated, and there are things I dare not admit to out loud, but she is clever. She has always been clever and quick-witted, and she guesses the truth I can only hint at. I can only speculate about the mark on her hand, that causes her pain. My speculations are dangerous, and thus, I mostly keep them to myself, but they cause me to wonder if the Hero holds a piece that is missing. I know the Evil King holds one, and my shadow holds another..._

 _I worry about what this coincidence might cost her. When she asks for the book that I know will be dangerous, I do not want to give it to her. I do anyways because she has a look on her face, in her amber eyes, that says if I do not, she will get it herself, and she is not able to walk._

 _She is scared. But she is brave. I think maybe_ she _is the one who holds the missing Triforce piece. And yet..._

 _I hold her, briefly. She needs it, and I need it. When she begins to study, I leave her to her own devices, as the town still needs caretaking, especially as Impa will soon leave it. I make her eat, I make her rest. My teacher comes. Teases us. Leaves._

 _We have time, at last, to ourselves. We talk again, and she teases my serious nature. She kisses my cheek, and I allow myself to hold her close._

 _The Hero returns, and I cannot help but be jealous of the affection she grants him. We talk. We argue. Words get said incorrectly, but she tries to make me understand. She says she loves me._

 _It is the first time she has said it. It was a word I had avoided. Between the word, and her admittedly confusing attempts at explaining how Gerudo handle relationships, I am left reeling somewhat, and need time to think, to parse through her words so I can attempt to understand._

 _I do not want to lose her friendship, or her affection. I do not want her to feel as though she is forced into a corner about these emotions. I am not sure what to say, so I retreat from her to give myself space to think. I decide, eventually, that her happiness is what makes me happy, and if loving both myself and the Hero does this, than I can try and be tolerant, and understanding._

 _It is not as though I hate the Hero. If anything, I owe him a debt for his care and protection of her. But I feel a bit of jealousy as well, that I cannot be there in the same way, because my shadow has need of my protection and guidance as well._

 _The Hero's return is fraught; I am forced to both show the Gerudo woman to the graveyard, and explain what happened to create the cold place known as the Shadow Temple. She yells at me, rightfully furious that I told her nothing. I accept the anger, as it is deserved, and I should have warned the Hero, but in my pettiness, did not._

 _I worry that I have lost her love, her friendship, and decide that I will remain as out of sight as possible, to give her time to calm down. She shadow-spars sometimes, and I cannot help but admire her form, and her skills; she has come so far in these past years, and learned well from me._

 _I would have allowed the Hero all the time necessary to recover, as penance for my silence, if not for the tribute. I was forced to wake them from their sleep to warn them, and though she was still angered with me, she expressed concern about the danger of my accompanying them._

 _I tell her what she needs most to hear; that she is a heroine, as much as the Hero is a hero. I see her forgiveness, and wish I have the time to kiss her. I do not._

 _We leave. We are separated quickly as I cast illusions and invisibility to aid in their escape. My shadow and I make for the desert after losing the Gerudo women loyal to the Evil King, and wait at the Spirit Temple for them to arrive._

 _The Hero arrives many weeks later, but he arrives alone, and in distress, as well as half-dead. A mighty sandstorm had swept them apart, and he fears her to be lost in the Desert of Illusions. I nurse him back to health, despite my own desire to go rushing out, and remind him that she is Gerudo born. She also has the many medallions and is in far better shape._

 _We argue about it for a while after he recovers enough to stand. We argue about many things, most of then centered around her. Somehow, we come to an understanding, and strangely, a friendship. The Hero is innocent, and while that innocence has been cracked, and damaged, it still lends to him a purity that makes him difficult to dislike._

 _I decide that if she loves him, I can be his friend, and we can love her together._

 _He finally agrees to wait when I remind him that we promised to meet here, and in due time, she will come to the Colossus, seeking us out. He is not happy about it, but then, neither am I._

 _When she arrives, we are playing music to keep our thoughts happy. She is relieved to see us, and we are relieved to see her; we drop precious instruments in the desert sand to run to her. It is interesting, intense, to hug both her and him at the same time. They are crying from relief and joy, but I am calmer, relieved and pleased, and wipe both of their tears away._

 _We talk; she explains what happened, and the spell that we both sensed. She is surprised that we waited for her, but upon entering the temple, she understands. We had no choice but to wait. Our combined strength, however, is not enough to shift the large block, and it is not until she translates the ancient tablets that we have an idea of what to do. The Hero is not pleased to leave her behind,and she does not want to be left._

 _He leaves anyways, after learning the ancient Gerudo Requiem, and she and I talk further, once we are out of the temple. She feels a sense of pressure, of looming fate, and it unsettles, her, but more than that is the air of the Temple itself. She claims it is similar, but not, to the graveyard, and I cannot help but worry._

 _When she offers of herself to me, I hesitate, but ultimately accept._

 _We wait for three days for the Hero's return, and then I must return to being only the observer, gritting my teeth as she must walk in halls that make her discomforted. Halfway through, as they begin the battle with the armor, my shadow and I are called away; there is another place we must wait, and though we are both in accord of disliking the idea, we return to the Temple of Time, to plan for the return of Princess Zelda, and the sundering of the Evil King._

 _They return in a flare of light, having chosen to teleport instead of walk; a wise choice. My shadow, the long-hidden princess, regains her true self, and apologizes for everything that was done. The Gerudo woman forgives easily this time, though there is still a hint of bitterness about everything. Still, she is gracious, and helps the Princess with the creation of the Arrows of Light._

 _And then darkness. They are taken, the woman and the princess both. We should have known better, but we did not think her would sense the magic over the power of the Temple. In our folly, we lose both women, despite our efforts._

 _I choose to abandon my observer role; there is no one to force it upon me now, and there are two women who need the help of myself and the Hero. The Hero is furious, and devastated, and afraid, but we work well together, in getting to, and through, the Evil King's castle. The barriers are difficult, but not insurmountable, and I suspect that the Evil King wants this confrontation. The Princess and the Hero both hold the missing pieces of the Triforce, and the Gerudo woman can command the True Force... if the Evil King is clever, the woman will be made to do as he commands..._

 _We stop to sleep only because we are forced to from sheer exhaustion that is emotional and physical. We eat. We sleep. We travel up the interior of a tower where all we hear is organ music, and the sounds of danger._

 _We are attacked the moment we enter the room, but not by the Evil King. We are attacked by her. And yet, it is not her. She moves with deadly grace and speed, and yet, in the end, neither one of us are killed. I am mostly ignored unless I insert myself into the fight, which I do to give the Hero breathing room._

 _The Evil King calls her off as she begins to make mistakes born from physical exertion, and gloats at how obedient she is. The Hero's anger is immediate and intense; I had already suspected, and the confirmation only makes me angrier, but I keep my emotions in check. The Evil King throws us back against the wall with dark magic, but I focus on her. There is a way to free her. There_ must _be._

 _There is, but it takes time to find it. The Hero's fairy is the one who tells me, and I set up the trap; she is exhausted, but still comes at me, for she has not been ordered to stop. The Evil King is fighting the Hero, and she is doing her best to kill me, but I can see the moment, and I break the control device, a blue stone that rests on her forehead._

 _I fear at first that I have knocked her out. She manages to sit up, and gets upset that I have not healed my injuries, before demanding her bow._

 _She is too tired to shoot. But she forces it anyways. In the end, I help to brace her, and the Light Medallion renews her energy. She shoots the Evil King in the back with an Arrow of Light, and he falls._

 _The tower shatters, and the Princess is return to us, but we must flee for our lives before the tower crushes us in the collapse. We survive, we make it out, and we watch the castle crumble. Our bridge is gone, however, and I speculate to myself how we will return to solid ground._

 _She is happy. Gleeful even. She kisses all three of us, then goes one step further with the Princess, picking her up and spinning her about. The Princess is laughing, but also embarrassed. The Hero is also embarrassed, but pleased. I spare a moment to wish that I could spin her about, and then the rubble shifts._

 _The fight is not over._

 _The Princess will not stand back now, and neither will the Gerudo woman. To a one, we enter the debris, seeking the cause of the sound._

 _The Evil King is not dead. He smashes through the rubble, and transforms into a great beast, armed with swords. We launch ourselves into the fray, seeking a weak point. I defend the Princess, because that is my duty. I would defend her, but she would be furious at the implication that she could not care for herself._

 _I have learned much about her, and I know that for a fact._

 _We find our weak point, but it costs us greatly; weapons are broken, and we are separated. She comes then, gives her bow to the Princess, and asks us to buy her time._

 _I know then, that she is going to do something stupid. I cannot stop her. I cannot even take a moment to kiss her like I want to. Instead, the Princess, the Hero, and I return to the battle, holding the Beast at bay so that she can cast the spell that will kill her._

 _The magic saturating the air gains weight. It becomes difficult to move, a side-effect I know she did not anticipate. The Hero goes flying. The Princess rushes to his aid, and I am sent crashing into her._

 _The Gerudo woman charges through the rubble, magic glowing about her in a rainbow corona. She runs, and her body his one of the Beast's blades head on._

 _The Princess screams a denial. The Hero shouts in grief, and I do as well, involuntarily._

 _The magic_ explodes _around us, and the Evil King screams. We weep, but we do as we must. The Hero moves in to kill the Beast, and yet cannot. The Princess commands the Sages to open the void between realms, and the magical light grows to blinding._

 _When I can see again, we are standing in midair, sky and clouds beneath our feet._

 _And she is there._

 _There is no decorum; we tackle her, all of us crying. Letting her go is simply out of the question, but we do, eventually, allow her to sit up. She tells us of unpleasant truths, that the Hero must return the Sword, and return to his true time. That she is dead, but was granted this time to return to us, to promise that we will someday meet again._

 _That is where the dreams have stopped, Lady Raiha. They repeat in order, as though I am watching memories of my own go by._

 _That is what they are, is it not? Memories of a time lost and forgotten, a time you were forced to leave behind because you had a path far greater than that which started everything to begin with._

 _These dreams, these memories, are what have led me here; after hearing of your seeking aid for the work in the Royal Library, and having never heard that name anywhere else, I knew that I had to come see for myself, and also that this would be the best opportunity for me to do so._

 _I truly hope that you remember as I do, my lady. I cannot say for certain if I am able to... love you as my past self has clearly done, but if it would not distress you, or those you love, I would wish to make the effort to try. If nothing else, I would very much like to be your friend, as you hold a wealth of knowledge that I can only dream of._

 _And please, if I am being overly presumptuous, tell me. I would take no pleasure in your discomfort, in your pain and grief. Only allow me to know if you remember, as I remember._

 _Your humble servant,_

 _Sheik Raeleigh_

* * *

Raiha let the pages fall, her hands shaking like leaves in a gale as tears streaked her cheeks. There was no way. And yet. _And yet_.

His words brought to the surface hints of memories that she had tried hard to cling to, and had lost anyways. She hadn't cared to renew those memories by reading her own journals, since the pain and grief could still be so raw. But so could the love.

Goddesses blessing the love could burn her to the quick.

Her food had cooled, forgotten as she'd allowed herself to be absorbed in the curly writing, the emotions that surged far stronger than memory every could. Though she ought to have been, she was not hungry in the least, and the children in her womb were still, as if commiserating with her the loss, and the fierce hope of what was, and possibly now could be.

A polite tapping on her door made her startle, and she hastily rubbed the tears from her face, even as she disabled her wards. She did not speak until she was sure her voice would be steady.

"Enter."

The healer and the doctor, both frowning slightly at her, entered the room, and she submitted silently to the necessary check-up, barely hearing the prognosis, or the scolding about allowing her food to go uneaten. She felt too dazed, too lost between hope and fear to give attention to something as trite as that.

When she was alone again, she retreated back into her bathroom, and returned to the bath; she was not going to make her three bells promise... she needed the time to compose herself before she saw him again.


	3. Three

Three

Sheik looked about him for what felt like the fiftieth time in ten minutes. Three bells had come and gone, and there was no sign of Lady Raiha. Not that anyone was getting restless, no, but he couldn't help but feel more than a modicum of concern. Had it been his letter? Had he been _wrong_ , and was she getting ready to throw him out on his ass for it?

It was honestly rather nerve-wracking, despite his facade of calm. He'd always been good at that, even before the memories had intruded into his sleep. Said memories were quiescent now, and had been ever since he'd set foot into a palace that didn't match. It was a little concerning, but also relieving; he hadn't really wanted to think about the questions people—his fellow scholars mostly—might ask if he could navigate without trouble.

He glanced up again, then back down at the book he had intended to be reading. He wasn't, but only because his mind was turning over the not-so-subtle difference between the Gerudo woman of the memories, and the Gerudo woman that was in the here and now. She was older, and her face was lined, albeit not deeply, by grief more than by laughter. Trying to get a read on her expression, outside of what she allowed them to see, had been impossible, and it made him wonder how she's learned it; perhaps his memories were not as complete as he'd thought.

It made him wonder if she had gone through the same thing, whatever it was that he was dealing with now. He didn't fully understand why the memories had come to him; what was their purpose? He was blind in one eye, it _couldn't_ have been to make him the start of a new clan of Sheikah. Could it? No, no, that made no sense. The shadowfolk were myth and legend, they weren't _real_.

The scholar in him fiercely refuted the idea of the Sheikah people. That there were bodyguards for the Royal Family wasn't in question, but for such people to do things like hide in the shadows themselves, to cast illusions and invisibility, like it was some easy trick... No, no, that part had to be legend. Magic was a vanishingly rare thing.

Except she'd said that she would train anyone who developed magical potential. She had made a comment about Lord Ganon—and the name raised the hairs on the back of his neck, both in anger and fear—blowing things up when she had been talking to Sir Link.

Sir Link.

Sheik gave up on reading the book, and just closed it so that he could run his fingers over the embossed cover while he turned over thoughts in his mind. Sir Link did not match the memories physically, but he still carried about him an air of innocence. Not necessarily purity, but the impression that Sheik had gotten from that brief hallway meeting was akin to that of an adolescent puppy; young enough to trip over his own paws, but old enough to be a good defender as necessary.

He wondered absently if he would get to meet the queen, and Lord Ganon as well. No doubt he was not the same man as the memories; he doubted very heavily that Lady Raiha would have allowed such a man into her life, let alone the lives of the ones she cared for. Not willingly.

"You look unhappy. You okay?"

He startled a little, and looked up at Adriane, the youngest scholar among them. At just past her sixteenth birthday, she was a lovely young woman with dark brown hair that she kept sensibly short, and hazel eyes that were peering at him though wire-rimmed spectacles. She was, he knew, ferociously smart, and extremely excited about being in the palace itself, let alone the public library.

"I am unharmed," he said with a slight smile, nodding lightly to her. "Apprehensive, perhaps, but nothing too intense."

"You sure? I mean, you looked kind of upset..."

She chewed on her lower lip, and he nodded a little again.

"It is nothing to worry about. Thank you for your concern. Are you doing well?"

Adriane still looked vaguely suspicious, but nodded herself after a moment, and flopped down in the chair next to him.

"There's so _much_ here!" and her voice was awed as she looked at the towering shelves, and the muffled voices that could occasionally be heard. "And the _Archive..._ "

He heard the longing in her voice and had to chuckle.

"It was quite the mess. It is no wonder that the lady needs some help."

Adriane nodded emphatically.

"Especially if she's gonna have a kid soon," the teenager said with a quick grin. "I don't think any of us that went are gonna back out; Even Aster and Dyman seemed enthusiastic about the chance to get in there and find out what sorts of ancient history could be on those shelves!"

Aster and Dyman were from the Academia, technically the sister-school to the Collegia. _Technically._ In reality, the two schools were highly competitive, seeking noble favor for continued funding, as well as the royal funding from the treasury.

Sheik held no animosity towards anyone trained at the Academia, but it hadn't been hard to see that his attitude—and Adriane's—were more an anomaly than the norm. Given the way the two teaching schools treated one another, it wasn't too surprising.

Raised voices caught his attention, making him look up, mildly vexed. It sounded like Toril and Isran were arguing with either the librarians or the other two puffed up scholars from the Academia, that Aster had said were lords Oron, and Casren. Again. He sighed a little, not sure he wanted to get involved when someone hit a back shelf hard enough to make it wobble. The sound of books hitting the floor made him wince, and Adriane shot to her feet.

"This is the fourth time in the past hour," Sheik said wearily, but he also got up, setting his book carefully aside. "They are not showing our schools in any redeeming light..."

The teenager shook her eyes, hazel eyes worried.

"We should, perhaps, stay out of it," he pointed out.

"But they knocked _books_ down!"

Her voice was incensed on behalf of the damage to the books, and he couldn't quite help the slight smile, nodding a little.

"True."

Adriane wasn't slow in moving in the direction of the escalating conflict. Sheik sighed a little, but followed; while he doubted he would be much help, if nothing else, he could help sort the fallen books.

The books were not the only thing on the ground by the time they got there. A number of magically sealed cases had been tossed to the ground as well, no doubt in hopes that they might break and release their contents. There was also two stunned librarians sprawled at one end of the shelves, and the four hot-headed men looked like they might be squaring off for a fight.

Sheik winced as one of the downed librarians struggled to sit up, one hand coming up to staunch the blood flowing from her nose, and went to help her, and her companion. Since asking if they were all right was rather pointless, he merely helped her to sit up while warily watching the four arguing men.

"I saw them first, therefore, _I'll_ be the one to open them," Toril snapped.

"Yes, because dropping them on the floor worked _so well_ for you," Oron mocked. "What next, jump up and down on them like a child throwing a tantrum?"

Sheik grimaced a little as Isran proceeded to stomp hard on the glass of one of the cases, and took note that several other librarians had shown up, but were standing well back. One—the elderly woman who had introduced herself as the head librarian under the lady—had an expression that was a mixture of grim annoyance, and malicious amusement. Another two were holding small crystals that glowed just slightly, and he wondered if those were summoning the lady, or the prisons she mentioned earlier.

Isran lifted a foot to stomp angrily on one of the fallen cases, and froze as someone cleared their throat pointedly. Everyone looked up to see Raiha standing there, one eyebrow arched up in a manner that suggested polite curiosity... if not for the ice in her amber eyes. Sheik shivered a little as Isran slowly lowered his foot, and the four scholars at least had the grace to look rather sheepish.

"You four tread perilously close to the edge of my temper," she said, her voice calm. "The cases are spelled closed for a reason, and with your treatment of my librarians, I am giving sincere consideration to summoning the guards to throw you out. For today, you are to remove yourselves from my domain, and learn to act like the adult males you are, instead of the children you are acting, _am I clear_?"

Her words had gotten progressively sharper, and it felt as though the air was ice itself by the time she had snapped out the last three words. The four scholars nodded in fairly meek embarrassment, though Sheik heavily doubted they meant it.

"Good. Now leave."

They did, hastily, and Raiha looked at the remaining assembled scholars and librarians. After a moment she sighed, then moved to check the woman that Sheik was helping. She was muttering under her breath in a language he didn't recognize, but the tone made it very clear that she was annoyed. He decided that staying silent and helpful was the better part of valor, and just shifted so that the lady could see the librarian without having to crouch too much in her condition.

"M'all right, m'lady," the librarian mumbled. "S'not broken..."

Raiha's ice thawed briefly, and she smiled in resignation.

"That would make the third time it would have been. Haven't I told you to duck more?"

"Yes m'lady."

She shook her head, and helped both the librarian and Sheik to stand.

"Go get cleaned up, and take a break," she said firmly. "Scholar Raeleigh, you may wish to change your shirt."

Sheik looked down at his shirt, which was a bit bloody, and sighed a little. Two in one day...

Raiha watched Sheik escort Marian to the library exit, then turned to the still-dazed Riko, who was being supported by the teenage girl. Said teenage girl looked up at her with wide hazel eyes as Raiha extended a tanned hand to rest on Riko's head, glimmering sparks of gold dancing around her palm.

"Urgh," the librarian opined, grimacing a little.

"Did you try and save the books, the cases, or just fail to duck like Marian did?" Raiha asked dryly, allowing a smile to flicker across her face as she removed her hand, healing finished.

"Cases," Riko said with a little grimace, gingerly reaching up to rub at a knot that was no longer there. "It was a reflex, m'lday..."

"I'll just bet. You're going to be dizzy for a while, so I recommend taking the rest of the day off, and getting some sleep. You'll only work half the day tomorrow, and if I see you pushing yourself, it won't even be that. Got it?"

He grimaced a little as the teenager helped him up, but nodded weakly. His partner, a young man with enough Gerudo in him to darken his skin noticeably, hurried forward to help support him, removing him from the teenager's care. Raiha favored the girl with a faint smile, and was heavily amused to see her blush in reaction.

"As for the rest of you, when I say behave, I mean _behave_ ," and she activated a spell that made her heard by everyone in the library as though she were standing right next to them. Hearing the scholars jump gave her a sense of petty amusement. "This is the only warning any of you will get. Mistreat my library, and I will not be so polite."

The librarians to a one were used to this, and once the problem was dealt with, moved in to replace the books and the cases on their shelves. The scholars scuttled about nervously as Raiha looked at the teenager, then shrugged a little.

"What's your name, girl?"

"Ah... Adriane, my lady. Adriane of Sorall."

"Scholar Sorall?" Raiha's lips twitched slightly as she allowed herself to relax a bit. The name was familiar, but she couldn't place it off the top of her head.

"Not... not officially," Adriane chewed her lower lip. "They think I'm too young to be a true scholar."

"And the incorrect gender?"

Seeing the girl flush, Raiha shook her head knowingly.

"Thank you for helping Riko, Scholar Sorall. Would you come with me, please?"

She caught the uncertainty—it wasn't hard, considering the moment—and chuckled a little.

"You're not in trouble, child. Just an interview. I'll be talking with everyone over the next few days, but I thought you might like to get it done and over with."

"O-oh..." Adriane blushed, and quickly fell into step behind Raiha as she turned to leave the stacks.

Raiha headed for her office—the room where she went when she didn't want to be disturbed in the library itself—and was pleased when the girl only hesitated briefly in the doorway to glance around.

It wasn't a terribly large room, but Raiha had made it very comfortable for herself. The wood-paneled walls were stained a golden brown and hung with paintings of Zora's Domain and Lake Hylia at dawn, and the goldenwood floor was covered in a variety of soft green, blue, and gold throw rugs.

A slender, tall window allowed in light and fresh air, ringed by heavy, amber-colored curtains for the days when it was too cold for such things. At the moment the window was cracked open to allow the smells of spring in, and the blue sheer fluttered in the slight breeze.

A desk was tucked up against the back wall, made of a deep brown wood that was polished to a glossy finish. It was mostly covered in papers and books, though the basket containing the letters of introduction had migrated in there at some point. The chair behind the desk was plush, a deep blue velvet, and made to her specifications.

Two long couches, one a solid blue and the other a paisley-patterned blue-green, bracketed a coffee table that was painted in a rainbow webwork of pastel colors, and set with a tea tray, and a tray of foodstuffs.

Raiha paused and gave the tea items a speculative glance, then smiled a little. Zelda was ever so thoughtful, and much more subtle than Ganon, with her hints. She approached the basket on her desk, and extracted Adriane's letter of introduction, cracking the seal as she moved to sit on the blue couch.

"Please, sit. Help yourself."

The teenager minced a little nervously onto the other couch as Raiha sat back on hers, and scanned the letter with a practiced eye. She saw—and ignored—the comments pertaining to Adriane's age, and made a faint sound of annoyance over a few phrases, before setting the letter down to look at the teenager herself.

Adriane seemed a bit pale, but she straightened when Raiha looked at her, and the Gerudo woman couldn't help but smile wryly.

"It's funny how these old men have the temerity to forget that their queen once held the Triforce of Wisdom," she said after a moment. "I suspect all the letters about the female scholars will run about the same. So instead, why don't _you_ tell me why you want to work in my library?"

Adriane squeaked, and Raiha poured some tea, and selected a few small sandwiches to give the girl a chance to collect hr thoughts.

"It's... I..." She fumbled for a minute, and Raiha gave her a faintly encouraging smile. "I've always... loved reading, my lady. I started with the fantasy stories, like most everyone else, but when I discovered history, I sort of... fell in love, I suppose. I want to know more about what the Oocca are, and how they lived, and, I want to know more about the history of our country, and why the books say magic declined at such an impressive rate, and more about the legends of the Triforce, and-"

She paused to take a breath, and Raiha had to work to keep from laughing. Enthusiasm was really a nice trait for a scholar, and this teenager seemed to have it in spades. It was hauntingly familiar...

"...You're related to Shad, aren't you?" she said after a moment, amusement in her voice.

Adriane squeaked, staring momentarily.

"That... My great-grandfather's name was Shad," she admitted, hazel eyes wide.

Raiha chuckled.

"I thought so. He was very invaluable in searching for the Sky Cannon during the Twilight Event. You plainly inherited his enthusiasm for knowledge, if nothing else. What did you think of the Archives?"

"...w-well... they're um..."

Adriane fumbled, looking for a polite word, and Raiha grinned.

"A mess?"

"Oh, well, um..."

"It's fine to say it, child. They _are_ a mess. Unfortunately a dangerous mess at that. You seem sensible enough, and enthusiastic enough, to fit well into the library alone..."

"I'd... I'd like to help with the Archives, my lady," Adriane said, suddenly shy. Raiha smiled in amusement as the girl twisted her fingers in her lap. "I mean... I know there's a lot there, and it'll take decades at best to put it in some semblance of order, but..."

Raiha nodded knowingly.

"But there's so much there," she said with a faint smile. "So much that's been forgotten, tucked away and uncared for. Believe me, when I discovered the actual state of the Archives, I was very, _very_ upset. I have a number of plans in mind for them, but first everything needs to be sorted and cataloged."

The redhead went quiet for a few minutes, and watched as Adriane plucked up enough courage to take a small cake to nibble on.

"I think you'll do quite nicely," she said finally, timing it so that the girl had just put down her fork from the first bite. As she choked a little, Raiha continued on as if she hadn't just confirmed a selection. "Mind, you can't get into the Archives without me, so most of your work for a while will be here in the library. You'll be given wages, of course; this isn't volunteer work. Library work isn't necessarily dangerous, but Archival work is, and you'll be paid accordingly."

The girl's eyes had gone wide again, behind her round glasses, and Raiha calmly sipped her tea as she waited for the mental restart.

"R... really?"

"Mmhm."

"B-but won't I need...?"

"A scholar's degree? My dear, if you're in the Collegia at your age, I'm not too fussed about it. I inquired at the Collegia and the Academia because I needed to know for certain that the people I got were of a scholastic bent, not a 'can I use this to my advantage' bent. And yes, I am aware that those four boys are in the latter category, but I promised Zelda that I would give everyone a fair chance."

Raiha shook her head a little in mild exasperation, then smiled dryly.

"I could have found them by opening up applications to all, but it would take much longer, and at the moment, I prefer speed. In any case, I'll mark you down as an Archivist librarian in training, and once I've interviewed everyone, we'll get that particular training started."

It amused her very much to watch Adriane's eyes light up, and the girl practically vibrate her delight at the acceptance.

"If Scholar Raeleigh has returned, could you send him to me?"

Adriane nodded, bouncing to her feet and out the door, cake forgotten on the table. Raiha chuckled a little, then moved over to her desk to find a wooden sign to hang from it; while she would accept interruptions during interviews, her talk with Sheik Raeleigh was far more serious. The sign would typically prevent interruptions... and it would also prevent anyone from eavesdropping.

She ate another sandwich, and a small cake, and was working on a third cup of tea when there was a tentative knock at the partially opened door. She gave mental points to him for not simply walking in, and set her tea aside, holding her sign lightly in her hands.

"Come in."

He entered with caution, hovering uncertainly near the door. She stood, and motioned him over.

"Please, sit Scholar Raeleigh."

As he moved to do so, she stepped past him, hung the sign on the door hook, and closed it firmly. She felt the spell activate once the door was closed, and nodded slightly to herself before returning to her own set, and picking up her cup of tea. Sheik clasped his hands loosely in his lap, and waited for her to speak.

"Your letter was very disconcerting, Scholar Raeleigh," she said finally. "I am not sure yet what to think about it."

"I apologize for causing you distress, my lady," he said quietly, his visible eye going down to his clasped hands. "It was not the intention..."

"Oh, I believe that, but whether or not it was the intention, it was the outcome. I am equal parts upset, curious, and concerned, mostly due to the fact that those memories are _not_ from the Sheik who lived in this particular timeline."

That brought up a pang of memory, heartbreak knowing that she could love Link so fully, but was not allowed to love either Zelda or Sheik as she had. She kept it from her face with effort, and half-closed her eyes as she studied the young man sitting across from her.

"That... truly happened then?" he asked hesitantly.

"It did. A very long time ago, in another world entirely."

"You... remember?"

Raiha grimaced. Considered. Then decided to capitulate and be honest. If nothing else, he deserved that much.

"Not in great detail any longer. I've been alive for too long. As new memories are made, the old ones are pushed out, no matter how hard one tries to cling to them. I remember feelings. And I have a memory book of images. I have journals, but I don't necessarily _like_ those memories. They were my first, and they are filled with as much pain and grief as they are with love and hope."

She took a sip of her tea, then set it aside with a sigh.

"Scholar Raeleigh, from what I've observed over my very long life, reincarnation plays merry hob with the mind. Most of the time, there _are_ no memories. Link has told me that sometimes certain things I say or do will result in flashes of images or very strong feelings, but on the whole, little comes from such things. That these dreams come to you at all is worrying, and... your appearance is admittedly more than middling disconcerting. You are, perhaps, _meant_ to be the reincarnation of someone I knew... a very long time ago, but I cannot take that at face value. For that I do apologize."

She wanted to. She wanted to so badly that it _hurt_. To have Sheik back after so many centuries was a blessing she'd not thought to ever get. And yet...

He didn't look upset, merely thoughtful, and she waited patiently to see what he would say, picking up her cup once more to indicate her small speech was done. After a moment he nodded.

"I understand, my lady. I think."

That got a tiny smile out of her, albeit a pained one.

"But... may I speak candidly?"

"Of course. I prefer open honesty to word dances."

That got a slight chuckle out of him.

"Then... My lady, the memories have been pushing at me for some time. When I heard that the Royal Sage, known as Lady Raiha, was seeking aid, I had thought that coming here would give me more answers. Instead, I seem to be left with more questions, and... while I will not say my hopes have been dashed, I will say you are _not_ like the Gerudo woman of the memories."

That made _her_ laugh.

"No, no, I am a far cry from the naïve child that you must see in your dreams. I'm nowhere _near_ as optimistic as she was; that well ran dry a very long time ago. But..." she absently rubbed her protruding belly as one of the twins shifted. "I am far more at peace with everything than I ever thought I might be."

She sighed a little, and set the empty cup on the coffee table.

"I am willing to allow you to remain, and we can see what, if anything, develops," she said finally. "We are not the same people that we were, and reincarnation though you might be, you are also still an individual. You are still wholly yourself, regardless of the dreams, the memories that touch your mind. In that regard, I will treat you as I treat the reincarnations of the Hero and the Princess, and what comes will come with time."

Again he nodded, and this time there was clear relief in his visible eye.

It was a gamble, taking this step, making this choice; explaining things to her family was going to be difficult, but would go easier if she told them at the same time. She wasn't looking forward to it. After a moment she shook her head lightly, dragging her mind away from attempts to plan those conversations, and changed topics.

"How did you lose the eye?"

He blinked, then a rueful expression crossed his face quickly, and he brushed his bangs out of his face. Sure enough, there was heavy scarring around his right eye, that held the eye itself closed.

"When I was younger, and my father still lived, he had an alchemist workshop. My older sister and I would sometimes visit father in the shop, and he would let us help him with the less dangerous chemicals. One day, my sister and I were not paying as strict attention as we should have been, and a small fire broke out. The minor explosion that followed launched flaming debris, and hit me full on in the face. My father got me out, and then went back for my sister, and to douse the flames before anything worse happened. The smoke took him, and my sister's arms bear scars from the flames..."

Raiha grimaced faintly in sympathy as he allowed the hair to fall back over his face.

"I am used to it, but the limited depth perception will cause me to be a bit... more clumsy ntil I am accustomed to the way things are in the palace."

"Which is how you managed to knock over the papers."

He winced a little, and she chuckled.

"It happens. I've done it, and really, things are stacked so haphazard in there that even just walking past them can knock things down. I assume you do want to work in the Archives?"

He nodded quickly.

"I... admit to hoping that I may find more on the ancient Sheikah than what the memories supply," he admitted. "I know they are believed to be lost now, but..."

"But there's always throwbacks," Raiha said knowingly. "And as magic returns to the world, some of those throwbacks will begin to exhibit signs of their skills. The won't be the only ones either; the general populace as a whole might not regain the use of a lot of magic for several centuries, but in time there will be a need for teachers. I would be very pleased if you would write down everything you recall about the Sheikah, and any new knowledge you find in the Archives would be very welcome as well."

He seemed almost flattered by the response, and nodded quickly.

"I would be glad to help you, my lady."

"All right. Then that's settled."

"And... the other matter?"

"We take it one day at a time, Scholar Raeleigh," she said, her voice gentle in its caution. "We will get to know one another, and if things seem like they are heading in a mutually desired direction, you may even get to meet the rest of the family. For now, however,live your life, and don't try to rush things. All right?"

"Of course, Lady Raiha."

"All right. I'll not down that you'll receive extra training for working in the archives, though for the moment, that won't happen too often. Until after the babies are born, we'll mostly be working in the library, and the majority of library training can be handled by my competent children."

He nodded, stood, then hesitated.

"My lady... about those four..."

Her smile turned sharp.

"They have one more chance to impress me," she said, her tone turning sharp and maliciously icy. "I doubt it will happen, but I have been surprised before. I only promised ZeldaI would give everyone a fair shot; three tries at maturity seems fair enough to me. Don't you agree?"

He looked a bit unsettled, even as he nodded slowly, and backed out of the room. Raiha tried not to laugh at his expression, and got to her feet after the door closed; she needed a quick bathroom break before she interviewed someone else... and a chance to regain the composure that the talk had fiercely rattled.


	4. Four

Four

Ganon sat back into the couch with a wuff of sound as Raiha's explanation of the day drew to a close, a faint frown on his face. Zelda seemed intrigued, but also a bit apprehensive. Link, puppy that he was, only seemed fascinated by the idea.

Raiha spread her hands slightly in a faint shrug that acknowledged everyone's reactions, and stifled a yawn. It had been a very long day, one filled with far too much emotion for her normally centered self at that.

"So... what do you intend to do?" Zelda asked finally.

"Like I said," Raiha replied with a tired shrug. "I'll treat him the same as I treated both you and Link. We'll find out if we can work together, and if something grows from that, more than friendship, I'll tell you about it."

"We could just bounce him out on his ass," Ganon grumbled, eyes narrowing.

Raiha gave him an icy look.

"How about I knock you ass over teakettle instead?" she threatened.

Zelda moved slightly as though she wanted to comfort Raiha, but the redhead shot her a frown as well, and she remained where she was sitting. She didn't want comfort, didn't want them to even _touch_ her right now. That was why she was sitting in the stuffed chair instead of on one of the couches.

After a moment, Zelda accepted the rebuke and turned a faint frown on Ganon.

"Don't bait her," she scolded. "This is hardly her fault."

Ganon looked from one woman to the other, then sighed, and held up his hand slightly, a somewhat pacifying gesture. Raiha was still annoyed, but she leaned back in her chair and let out a slow breath. It would do for now, and she knew him well enough at this point to recognize that he was uncomfortable with this. It wouldn't surprise her at all if he came around her room later with a proper apology.

"What about those four scholars?" Link asked, for once adroitly changing the subject. "Do you need help with them?"

"I wouldn't turn it down," she said after a startled pause. "I expect after being so firmly threatened, they'll be on their best behavior for a day or so, but it won't last. They're that type of prideful children. It still amazes me how they pop up, despite the fact that Hyrule is traditionally ruled _by a Queen._ "

"We could detach a handful of the more-trained guards," Ganon said thoughtfully, scratching lightly at her chin. "Have them dress in everyday clothes and scatter them around the library to make sure nothing too trying happens."

She considered the idea, then nodded thoughtfully. The librarian team was still small, even though it had been ten years since the Shade's occupation. It was also seen as a relative slow, easy job by most people, and a good number of young folks wanted more adventure than could be found in the dusty shelves that were constantly being restocked with books.

"That could work," Raiha said after a moment. "I fully expect them to justify my expectations of needing to throw them out, but it would be nice to not have the children in danger."

She saw Zelda stifle a smile, and affected a faint shrug; everyone was a child in comparison, though it was probably a bad habit to refer to her adult librarians as such.

"D'you want one of us to come too?" Link asked.

"No, I think the extra guards will be fine," Raiha replied, though she was feeling relaxed enough now to grant him a faint smile of appreciation at the offer. "Besides, you all have more to do than babysit the library. That's _my_ job, after all."

"Well, you'll have to step away from it after tomorrow," Zelda said. "The Gerudo delegation is arriving the day after; they want to go over the treaty again, and you know they respond better to you than to me."

"I know, I know. I don't _think_ we left in any loopholes for your nobility, but I don't mind going over it again. Gan, you still have the final draft, right?" He nodded. "Good. We can go over it at some point tomorrow and double-check."

He gave her a sharp look, but nodded after a minute. While 'Ganondorf the Evil King' was nothing more than legend and myth in this world, and the devastation of the Gerudo had been caused by other, far earlier means, he was still leery of approaching his nomadic people. She knew part of it was the same culture shock she was working through, but unlike him, the culture shock was pleasing more than confusing. The rest he had yet to confide, but she could guess that he worried he would want to take over leadership. Which, honestly, just wasn't feasible.

Gerudo males were a full part of the tribe now, and there was no one king. There was, instead, a council made up of elderly folk that led the Gerudo as a whole, and below that council, each tribe maintained its individuality with elected headmen and headwomen. Some tribes were run by males, some by females, and yet other by both. And that wasn't counting the tribes that were run by individuals who didn't identify with the binary, of which there were more than a few.

Raiha found the whole thing to be intensely satisfying, really. She had wondered, if only to herself, how long it had taken her people to come to this form of living, and what had spawned it. She meant to ask at some point, but not for a while. There was simply too much to do at this point.

"Will they accept, do you think?" Zelda asked.

Raiha nodded.

"The desert is theirs, and they know the trade routes through them. It'll be nice to get some new things from a different source. Not that Hyrule isn't vastly self-sufficient, but there's always a luxury market for such things. As long as we treat them fairly, they'll return the favor."

"And as long as we keep the nobles from clamoring to annex the desert again," Ganon grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest.

"And that," Raiha nodded again, wryly. "Though all things considered, I'd be highly amused to see them _try_?"

All three of them gave her wary looks. Raiha only smiled her sweetest, most innocent smile. Zelda broke first.

"All right, dear, what did you do?"

"I?" Raiha put a hand on her chest in mocking shock. "I did nothing."

"Rai..."

She grinned.

"Well I _didn't_. If they somehow came into possession of spells that take hostile intent and spit that person back to the edge of the desert, well, it's all the better for them."

Ganon snorted with laughter. Zelda just sighed in resignation.

"Is it breakable?" Link asked curiously.

"Mmmm... Not by anyone except maybe myself or Ganon. I didn't make them after all."

"Wait, if you didn't make them then...?" Ganon paused. Thought for a moment. Then snorted again as he drew the logical conclusion. "You had those Light Spirits do it."

"Precisely," Raiha smiled smugly. "No offense meant Zel, but your nobility don't always accept _no_ as the answer, and I don't think anyone fancies starting a war. It works both ways; if a Gerudo with hostile intent tries to cross the border, they'll be turned back to the desert. If Hylians try it, they'll come face to face with the lake. If either side _keeps_ trying, I'll be informed, and then things may get a bit nasty, but it should all work out."

Catching sight of Link's wince, she smiled sharply. She hadn't yet had her hand forced in a manner that would _require_ her to unleash both genuine temper and the rather aggressive amount of power she had, but he had enough experience with her to know that 'nasty' was her way of being polite about the damage she would cause. Ganon just nodded approvingly, and Zelda shook her head in resigned amusement.

"It shouldn't come up, in any case," Raiha pointed out, feeling more relaxed and amused than she had all day. "The Gerudo want to befriend Hyrule. The kingdom is prosperous, and trade can only help us become more so. As long as neither side tries anything stupid, that should be achievable."

"Theoretically," Ganon said after a moment.

"Well, there will be little reason to put theory into practice, so long as everything goes smoothly. You really ought to attend; I think you'd like it, and they can certainly answer the questions you posed to _me_ far better than I can," she replied dryly.

He made a face at her, and she made one back, then yawned a little.

"I think it may be time for you to get some sleep," Zelda said with a knowing smile. "And I suppose telling you that you really shouldn't be working so hard this late in your pregnancy is fruitless?"

"About as fruitless as it was to tell you," Raiha said with a dry smile, carefully getting to her feet.

Zelda gave Link a sideways look. The hero had the grace to blush, and look down at the tips of his boots. Raiha snickered a little, flirted her lovers a wave, and headed out of the room, carefully stretching out her arms as she did so. She didn't have to wait long for Link to catch up either, and adjusted her stride so that he didn't have to trot to keep up with her.

"...that was very well done," she said after a moment.

"You looked like you were thinking about setting his hair on fire," Link admitted, sheepishness in his voice. "I thought it would be better to not have that happen. I don't like you guys... arguing."

"Even though most of the time we no longer mean it?"

"You mean it often enough..."

Lightly she tucked her arm through his, and sighed.

"You're worried about the balance among us, aren't you?"

After a moment, he nodded.

"While we may antagonize one another, Ganon and I don't do it with malicious intent. I know his comment was him trying to be helpful, in... his own rather rough way. He doesn't like seeing me in distress any more than you do."

And personally she felt that Ganon had less reason to care about such a thing. The fact that he _did_ was actually a little touching.

"In any case, what do _you_ think about this little fireball?"

Link was quiet for a few minutes, then hesitantly rested one of his hands over hers.

"I'm a little nervous," he admitted. "But also curious. He meant a lot to you, and I really just want you to be happy. Even if you can't be what we read in the journals anymore, you getting to be _happy_ after all of that is... it's really important to me."

She smiled down at him, touched by the kindness and his earnest nature. Lightly she tapped his nose.

"Just don't be so solicitous of me that you forget to take care of yourself, hm? You and Ganon have a good working relationship, and personal partnership. I don't doubt that Ganon is a bit worried about what possibly adding another person to our grouping will do to the dynamics of it. Honestly, it concerns me as well, but I am trying to _not_ plan for every little thing anymore."

Link smiled back, briefly tucking his head against her shoulder affectionately.

"It'll work out," he said confidently.

She was less certain, but his faith in her was touching. Lightly she kissed his forehead, then disengaged her arm from his as they approached her rooms.

"I'm going to sleep like a rock tonight," she murmured, yawning. "G'night Link."

"Night Rai!" A pause. "Rai?"

She stopped in the doorway and cast him a curious look.

"You're okay, right?"

"...I'll be fine, Link. Go to bed."

He looked uncertain, but after a moment nodded in acceptance. She stepped into her room, and gently closed the door behind her, then leaned against it briefly with a sigh. It wasn't _technically_ a lie, she told herself. She _would_ be fine. It just occasionally was... surprising at how strong certain emotions could abruptly become. Harder still not to want to cling tightly to hope.

But.

"Plan for the worst, hope for the best," she muttered, rubbing her face wearily. "Or maybe just don't hope at all. It'll hurt less."

She shucked her clothing haphazardly, and climbed awkwardly into bed, taking several minutes to make sure she was comfortable on her side. She couldn't wait for the children to be born so that she could return to sleeping on her stomach...

Once snuggled down, she drifted into a deep, and thankfully dreamless, sleep. Unfortunately for her, it didn't last.

Sometime around the midnight hour, a familiar feeling washed over her, snapping her into a very _annoyed_ awareness in under a minute. Ganon had asked a couple of times how she always knew when he was having a nightmare, and while she had never told him, she was heavily tempted to point out that his idea of control, and _her_ idea of control, were two vastly separated things.

To put it frankly, when Ganon had a nightmare, anyone with magical sensitivity could feel it. She knew Zelda had, as the queen had admitted to sometimes waking up with a sense of unease that could turn to fear or dread quite rapidly not long after Raiha had returned for good. True, it could come from Zelda's own memories, but the Hylian woman had sealed herself off from the Shade's corruption early on, thanks to Raiha's cryptic hints.

Meanwhile, whenever Raiha had nightmares—which she did, frequently—the only person that was disturbed was herself, and maybe a few guards when she went out on a late-night ramble the few times she had been to restless to sit and read.

She didn't wholly understand it, but she had a theory; magic, Gerudo magic especially, tended to rely on intense emotions to begin with. In many cases, the _desire_ to make a spell work would funnel a result... albeit not always the expected one. While Ganon had learned to control his considerable _power,_ he only occasionally chose to extend that control to his _emotions._ And since his power seemed to be saturating the palace, albeit unconsciously, it made sense that it would carry the flavors of his strong emotions with it, especially in the places that he'd identified as safe.

Really, she liked that about him, and didn't he deserve to be allowed to show his own feelings after centuries of not being in control? He made a good contrast to her and Zelda, who were both more emotionally restrained in public. Mostly, anyways. When she was feeling charitable, she could easily laugh at how quick he could go from snippy to playful.

This, however, was not a particularly charitable night. She was _exhausted_ , and in no way emotionally capable of dealing with Ganon's issues on top of her own.. and yet, she couldn't just shut him out. She wondered irritably, as she lifted a hand and disabled the ward on her door, if he'd ever even considered going to Zelda at least once. If he _couldn't_ consider it because this was just not a good night, and if he pushed her the wrong way, things wouldn't end well.

Getting out of bed took more effort; the blankets were nice and soft, and she had been _comfortable,_ damnit. It took her time to get comfortable with this belly, but now that she was awake, her body was telling her a few pointed things, and she muttered various curses under her breath as she went to her bathing room to handle certain necessities.

Of course by the time she was done, she was hungry too. Annoyance from hunger she could deal with, at least, thanks to the dumbwaiter that went to and from the kitchens, and the fact that there was always _someone_ awake down there no matter the hour. Like the guard houses in the city, the kitchen only quieted down, it didn't actually sleep. So it didn't take her long to send down for a pot of herbal tea that would calm Ganon, and a small try of finger foods that she would probably finish off herself, since he didn't usually eat after a bad nightmare.

She was starting to suspect the night cook had a sensitivity to magic, because it didn't take more than five minutes before the requested items came up; the tea was piping hot, and smelled of soothing herbs, making her yawn a bit as she carried it to the table before the fire. A thought changed the flames from banked low coals to earnest crackling, making the ambient temperature jump, and she curled up sidelong on her backless couch, wrapping one of the many thick blankets around her shoulders as she settled in to wait.

She was almost asleep again by the time the door latch clicked softly and the faint rush of cooler air told her that someone had opened her door. She snapped back into wary alertness, half-sitting up to identify the person who lingered in her door.

It was, as she'd expected, Ganon. The firelight didn't illuminate him too well, but the way he markedly hesitated made her growl faintly in impatience.

"Either come in, or go away," she told him, voice thick with exhaustion and temper both. "But make up your mind quickly."

He still hesitated, and she was heavily tempted to throw something at him. Instead she sat up the rest of the way, and reached for the food; if she was going to do this, she was going to have to curb her exhausted impatience. Food would temporarily help with that.

Slowly, he entered the room and closed the door behind him, before carefully making his way into the light. The ward snapped back into life when he did so, though it would not harm him if he chose to leave. It only prevented unwanted entry.

She frowned a little at him as she ate, but it was thoughtful, not angry; he looked rather terrible. Sweat matted some of his red hair to his forehead, and there was a haunted look in his eyes. He hadn't bothered to put on a shirt, and she could see sweat on his chest too, and... her frown deepened. He was trembling. Not full on shaking, but every few minutes she could see a shiver crawl down his spine.

When she got to her feet to check on him more thoroughly—a healer's concern overriding her exhaustion—he flinched, and took a half-step back. She stopped before she could take more than half a step, and her frown grew more pronounced. This was a reaction she'd seen only a handful of times in the past five years, but that didn't make it any less strange.

After a moment she sat back down, slowly, and rewrapped herself in the blanket; she would let him gather his courage and approach instead of unnerving him further. She would remain calm, somehow, and maybe just this once—if he was feeling up to it—she would let him stay overnight in her bed to sleep.

He took in a breath that shuddered out of him, sharpening her concern. When he finally approached, it was step by slow step, and he didn't sit down. He crouched, he _knelt_ before her, staring up into her face as if seeking answers, or wanting some form of penance. Raiha hesitated, then lifted a hand lightly; he flinched, but didn't move away, so she let her palm come down lightly on his hair, a warm, light touch. He shuddered anyways, and she wasn't sure if it was from revulsion or fear.

"You're safe, Ganon," she said quietly, doing her best to be compassionate. "You're safe."

He shifted a little closer, and rested his forehead on her knees, and this she had seen _less_ than a handful of times, but it spoke of nothing good. She had to force herself back towards calm, and started running her hands over his sweat-dampened hair, quietly humming the Song of Healing. The soothing magic spiraled out of her easily enough, filling the air with a different kind of warmth. She could only hope that it was enough.

There were dreams he wouldn't speak of. She guessed that they involved her, given his reactions _to_ her on those nights. She chose to not pry or push because frankly, there were things she just didn't want to know about. That didn't mean she couldn't offer the comfort her needed, however.

Eventually, his arms came up, and rested on either side of her, almost a hug but not quite. His hands trembled, but the breaks between were becoming greater, and she could see that he was breathing easier as well.

The bells had just rung the second hour of the morning when he finally let out that long sigh, and sat back on his heels. She was glad to see some of his equilibrium restored, and lightly touched his cheek. It wasn't a caress, it was a check, and when he didn't flinch, but met her eyes steadily, she nodded a little in satisfaction, and straightened her back with a faintly pained groan.

"I'm afraid I ate all the sandwiches, but there's still plenty of tea," she said quietly. "You want it now?"

He nodded, and carefully stood up to retrieve the thick earthenware mug that he preferred. She saw him wince a little, and empathized; his legs had no doubt cramped or fallen asleep from being in that position for almost an hour. Sitting down on the couch happened a little harder than normal because of it, and she made a faintly amused sound.

The relatively sour look he shot her in reply was comforting. It meant he really _was_ feeling more like himself, and if that self was a bit antagonistic, well, she liked him that way. _Someone_ needed to argue with her, after all. Zelda would debate, and Link would diffidently offer his opinion, but Ganon would offer shouting matches that were somehow both fun, and more pure than anything else.

She waited quietly while he drained his mug then poured himself another cup, covering a heavy yawn that threatened to pop her jaw if she wasn't careful.

"I'm keeping you up," he said after a moment.

"...well, yes. It'll make today very interesting."

He grimaced.

"Sorry."

Apologies from Ganon, _genuine_ apologies, were rare. She got them more often in private than in public, and she just nodded a little to show she accepted.

"...mind a question?"

"Another one?" she teased gently.

The sour look got an answering dry smile, and his mildly aggravated sigh was pleasing.

"Are you _really_ okay with all... this?"

"Be more specific."

He waved one hand a little, then raked it through his hair, disheveling it further. Picking on him was typically fun, but goddesses she was tired, and drawing this out was not going to help her get to sleep any time soon.

"You're referring to today's incident with Sheik, yes?"

He nodded. She sighed.

"...I am suspicious, and already planning for the worst to happen," she admitted, folding her hands loosely over her belly. One of the twins chose that moment to shift, and despite her unease, she couldn't help but smile. "The worst being that this is some lie, some plot, and I am a fool to hope that it could possibly be real. In the many centuries since that time, I have likely built up an ideal of Sheik, one that in no way matches the reality of who he was. Who he is _now_ , I am not certain, though I am willing to find out. My initial impression is that of a young man who wants nothing more than to further his knowledge... and is as uncertain about this venture as I am."

She was quiet for a few minutes, staring into the flames that were amber and amethyst in equal measure. Hope, resignation, a little bit of fear...

"I want him back," she admitted lowly. "But it will not break me into pieces if I cannot have him. I am stronger than the girl from his memories. And I have a support system, should the worst come to pass, one that is heavily invested in my happiness..."

She could feel the weight of Ganon's stare, and after a few moments, felt the weight of his arm as he wrapped it around her shoulders. Like him, she didn't show vulnerability often. She doubted she would be showing it _now_ if she were not pregnant. Still... leaning against him would do no harm.

"If he breaks your heart, can I break his legs?"

The question startled a laugh out of her, and she lightly elbowed his side.

"No you may _not._ Why are you always so violent? Honestly!"

She looked up in time to catch his quick grin, and knew they were back on fully stable footing once more. It was gratifying, and with the weight of concern removed from her mind, the exhaustion washed over her in a wave, making her yawn.

"Not even a little?"

"Not even a little," she told him firmly. "And you're not to arrange 'accidental' threatening sessions either, bully. If more than friendship develops, I'll bring him to meet all of you formally, presuming you all haven't met by that time. _Then_ you can decide whether you like one another, or need to fight one another, whatever it is that males do to decide who's at the top of the pecking order."

"...that one's easy," he grumbled. "You and Zelda."

She snickered mercilessly at his expense. He just grumbled a little under his breath, and put the mug back on the tray without refilling it, a clear sign that he was balanced enough to consider leaving. After a moment, however, he glanced at her, and she could see the unease that lurked in the back of his eyes.

She sighed a little, and acquiesced to her own conscience; while she liked her space, and didn't like it being impinged upon, she could hardly let him return to a room that probably still sang with strong negative emotions.

"Come on. I'm exhausted, and you need to sleep too, not run on six hours," she said. "You can stay with me tonight."

He startled, and she saw appreciation flicker through his golden eyes before he nodded and stood as well, following her quietly into her room. He let her get settled first before he cautiously climbed in among the many pillows and blankets, and to her comfort he ended up on his side, his back just barely pressing against hers.

"Thanks," he said quietly, after he was settled.

"Mmn. I blame you if we oversleep."

She felt the bed shake a little as he chuckled.

"Fair enough."

It didn't take him long to fall asleep. Hearing his breathing slow and deepen, Raiha did her best to attempt the same. Unfortunately, while she could share her bed during and after sex, _just_ sleeping so close to someone put all her nerves on high alert. Someone was in _her space_ , and she was just not okay with that.

She gave up after ten minutes, and slid carefully out of the bed, taking herself and a handful of blankets and pillows out to her couch. It wasn't as wide, or as comfortable, but it once she was wrapped up in her blankets and pillows, she felt relaxed enough to finally drift back down into the depths of sleep.


	5. Five

Five

"So, when are you due, lady Raiha?"

The question made Raiha blink, and look up from the notes she had been scrutinizing. It was one of her eventual Archivists, Tamry, who had broached the subject, but she could see the interested glances from others within hearing range.

"Due? Oh, the twins. Another couple of weeks at the latest," she shrugged lightly. "I'll be glad of it, but I'm aware that it'll begin an entirely new round of 'check your sanity at the door' for everyone."

There was a muffled sputter of laughter from those around her. She smiled dryly, and shrugged lightly.

"What about the father?"

This voice scratched at her temper some, but the four belligerent children had managed to check their egos at the door thus far, so she turned to answer Toril with as much politeness as the question warranted.

"They're _my_ children," she replied. "Even in the long-ago times when there was only one Gerudo male per century, my people have always been matriarchal. We trace the mother's bloodlines, not the father's."

"Because there are more female Gerudo than male, right?"

This came from Adriane, and had the feel of a genuine question, with no malice behind the curiosity. So Raiha smiled faintly, nodding.

"For every Gerudo male born, there are seven females. It's an interesting quirk of my race," and she shrugged lightly. "It always has been that way, as far as I'm aware. The point being, my children are of my blood, and while they will certainly inherit traits from their fathers, there's no need to raise a fuss about who sired whom. They'll have two mothers and two fathers, and we'll all raise them to the best of our abilities."

"Will they be royalty?"

That made Raiha laugh.

"No, no. Only children born of Zelda are princesses and princes. They'll get the same teachings as Tetra, however, so that when they're old enough to decide what they want to do, they'll be well-equipped to do it."

"It doesn't bother you?" Adriane asked, curiously.

"No," and Raiha shrugged lightly. "You Hylians seem convinced that the best way to raise a child is with one mother, and one father. Maybe help from a set of grandparents or aunts and uncles. My people, we're raised communally. Every cousin can be a sister, every aunt, a mother. What one parent has trouble understanding or explaining, another parent can explain easily, and without prejudice. I prefer that sort of thing."

"Our ways are just fine for our people," Casren said stiffly.

"Yes, but I'm not _of_ your people," and she smiled sharply. "I'm Gerudo. And Zelda approves of this, in case it's failed to be obvious. I believe she started it, I'm just continuing it."

She heard Sheik's slight cough that held buried amusement, and slanted him a wry look. His visible eye was glittering in amusement, but he was keeping his face reasonably sober.

"And of course no one knows where she got the idea from," he said, his tenor voice mild.

Raiha's expression was all innocence, and she bent back over the pages, riffling through them briefly, before tapping them into a neat pile. She was going to need them in her meeting...

"Not a clue."

There was a faintly annoyed grunt from both Toril and Casren, and her smile gained a sharp edge. Oh, she knew they had been told that she was far older than she looked. Muriel, the head librarian, had told them how _she_ was recruited back when she had been much younger.

But of course they didn't believe. Why would they? Immortality was impossible, and magic wasn't a thing any longer, according to them. Never mind the fact that she had a variety of spells all over the palace to make living and working there easier.

She mentally shrugged; whether they believed or not wasn't her problem. If her hand was forced, she could very much bring down the hammer. She hoped it _wouldn't_ be, but she would, as always, do what had to be done.

"Someone in these late stages of pregnancy shouldn't be working as hard as you do, my lady," Tamry said, finally joining the conversation again.

Raiha snorted in amusement, tucking the papers into a folder for good measure.

"Believe it or not, this _is_ me taking it easy," she said with a quick smirk. "I'm not up on ladders trying to return books to their shelves, I take ten minute sit-downs every half an hour, if I get tired, I retreat to a private space for a nap, and there's always _someone_ ready to get me some food if I mention I'm hungry. I'm no worse than Zelda was during her pregnancy, and the job still must be done, even with my encumbrance."

Sheik nodded a little in faint approval, though the older woman seemed to not much care for her answer. Raiha just snickered a little, unrepentantly, and picked up the folder as she got carefully to her feet.

"All right then, children. I've got some work to do in my office. So behave."

She didn't wait to see whether there would be mutinous looks or accepting nods, she just turned away from the public desk, and walked back to the office as her mind flickered through items on her list; she had interviewed, briefly, the rest of the potential archivists. Of them, three had decided the Archives were too intimidating to be comfortably worked in, which was perfectly fine. The mix of redundant ancient knowledge, and dangerous old magics often gave her pause for thought too.

So that was more or less sorted; Muriel would handle the training of everyone for at least a month, introducing them to the library, the sorting system, the other workers, and so on. She would also help them find lodgings outside the palace if they wanted them, though the rules for those who didn't live in the librarian dorm-house were a bit stricter. Or so Raiha had been told.

Assuming nothing untoward happened, she would take her pack into the Archives in three days. She was looking forward to getting some _real_ work done in there, more than just the one cleared out corner.

She stepped into her office, leaving the door cracked as a way of keeping an ear on things as well as letting anyone who wanted to talk to her know that she was available for said conversation before she started digging through files in her desk drawers, seeking the previous incarnation of the treaty that she and Ganon had marked all to hell, to compare it to the cleaner, more 'legalese' written version in her folder.

She was in the middle of said scrutinization when she heard someone enter, carrying a tray. There were few people who would do _that_ , so she didn't bother looking up, assured that it was, in fact, someone she trusted. When the tray obscured her reading, she even knew who it was without having to see the tanned hands, and glanced up at Ganon in annoyance.

" _Must_ you?"

He smirked a little.

"Zelda said to make sure you eat. Since I have to work with you on the treaty, I figured we'd eat, and work."

She muttered a few choice words under her breath, but obligingly shifted her work from the desk to the couches and coffee table for comfort. And if she was scrutinizing Ganon while she moved, well, he was pretending not to notice.

"What excuse do you want me to make for you not being there this time?" she asked finally, after they had eaten half the food and gone over a third of the treaty with a fine tooth comb to make sure their changes had been incorporated. "They really _do_ want to meet you, you know. One Gerudo in high, Hylian society is rare; two is almost heresy. A Gerudo _male_ in Hylian high society, well, that's just unbelievable; if not for the fact that everyone here tends to confirm you exist, they'd probably think I was playing some huge practical joke on them."

She watched as he flinched, and looked away from the work; while sympathetic to his needs, this was something that he had to _say_ damnit. He needed to hear himself draw the line he wanted to hold. Maybe once he finally _said_ it, he wouldn't feel so unhappy about the choice, and he could move on with living his life the way he wanted.

While she waited, staring at him very pointedly, she ate another small cake, silently savoring the sweet treat. She did hate to put him so on the spot, but she was tired of dancing around the issue, and tired of making lame excuses. 'Busy with training' only made them want to go and see what he was doing, and heading _that_ off had taken a lot of effort that she hadn't really wanted to waste. She had because he'd asked her to, but it had left her very annoyed.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"...you'll laugh," he grumbled.

"I might, but you are also three steps away from my temper, and that gap is closing rather rapidly," she retorted, slapping the papers down in irritation. "Nayru's tears, Ganon, the legends of the Demon King are _just that_. Legends! They weren't around for the Twilight Debacle, and the Four Swords mess was what made them pack up and leave again, three centuries ago. _Three!_ While they might hold it as history, there's nothing that connects _you_ to what happened! A name is a _name,_ not an indication of the past or the future!"

The fact that she had been somewhat stuck in Termina, trying to cross dimensional boundaries, had made her miss both their reemergence, and their leave-taking, which was why _she_ had thought the race extinct. It was nice to be wrong on occasion.

Ganon winced again, looked down at his knees, then finally at her. Still not directly—he glanced and then looked away, no doubt unwilling to meet her temper head on—but it was mild progress, and she picked up her tea cup and sat back. He didn't take much longer to fold.

"It is... sort of that," he admitted lowly. "That they'll see me, and realize who I am, who I was, and what I did... It won't matter that I wasn't in control, it'll only matter what _happened_. And... the other part is... I want to go back. But I don't..."

She waited, temper easing back into silent patience. The wrong phrase might instigate a sharp-tempered correction, but since he was talking, she would let him find the words on his own.

"I feel like if I go back, I'll want to rule," he finally said. "Like I was supposed to, like I was _meant_ to. If I meet them, they'll invite me; they invited you, after all. I don't... think I'll be able to say no. And I don't know that I'll be able to come back if I do go..."

She sipped the tea, and watched as he returned his gaze to his knees. The vulnerable posture made her mentally wince; between last night's dream—whatever it was—and today's meeting, he was really taking a heavy mental beating. And she had to admit, his concerns were valid.

And yet...

"So, you'd never want to see Tetra again?" She asked pointedly. "Or Zel, or Link, or watch the twins grow older? You'd never want to try and make a baby _with_ Zelda, or just spend some time fooling around in the baths with Link? You'd avoid seeing if Tetra's magic grows with her, or if the twins will learn spells?"

His head snapped up, and she saw the denial, followed by the surprise.

"You've had these thoughts too," he said after a stunned moment.

Raiha's smile was sharp, and she set her cup down with a firm click.

"I'm Gerudo," she replied. "The desert is home in a way that Hyrule is not. But I have more to keep me in Hyrule, than I have calling me back to those hot sands. I may visit after the twins are born, I may not; I haven't decided yet. But I know where I'll be going once the novelty of being among Gerudo wears off. I know who'll be waiting for me to come home."

He was quiet for several minutes, just studying her.

"...you want to say something really cutting right now, don't you?"

She grinned. It was _mostly_ playful.

"You have _no_ idea, Red. But what's the point? You make your own decisions, and you'll either accept the input I'm offering, or reject it. That's your choice. What you decide to accept or leave behind, I won't stand in your way about."

"...no, you'll stomp all over my ass if you think I'm being an idiot," he grumbled.

"Well, yes. Because you are an idiot. But you're also not a child, and jumbled up memories or not, you're still enough _you_ that any decision you make has to come from your own desires. My input, Zelda's, Link's... they're only that. Input. You don't _have_ to take that into consideration."

Now he looked insulted. She hid a smile; knowing just how to pinch him to get the reaction _he_ needed was really quite fun.

"Fine, I'll meet them," he snapped. "I'll show you that I'm not afraid to make this choice!"

"Mmhm. You do that, Gan."

The glower he leveled at her almost made her laugh. Instead of coming up with something pithy—he'd done it before, and was really quite good at it—he got up and stomped out of the room. Raiha merely leaned forward and poured herself another cup of tea, then picked up the last piece of cake.

All right, so maybe baiting him hadn't been the _nicest_ thing she could have done, but really. It was _exhausting_ to dance around a subject, and jabbing Ganon with a pin got her better results than trying to placate and appease him. If there was one stereotypical Gerudo trait they shared, it was stubbornness; now that he'd _agreed_ to tag along, he would, even if he had second and third thoughts.

And once he was with the four young people—and they were young, and eager—he would see that there was very little to worry about. The Gerudo didn't need a king. Or a queen. Their council was a remarkably good solution for a series of tribes that only came together a handful of times in the year. Sure there would be some adjusting if the Gerudo _did_ settle the land where the prison used to be—and she made a mental note to go out after the twins were born and see how that section of the desert was healing, because she did _not_ want her people getting possessed by anything—but on the whole, she expected things to go well.

A polite tap made her look up, and she raised an eyebrow as Sheik slipped in.

"Is everything all right, my lady?" he asked.

"Mmhm. Ganon's just adjusting to the fact that he lost yet another argument, even if he's not sure how," She smiled a little slyly. "Maybe someday he'll learn not to argue with me. Maybe."

Sheik glanced out the door uneasily.

"He seems very... upset."

"He didn't sleep too well, and he's somewhat stressed about current events," she shrugged lightly. "He can be testy; he's controlled enough to not hurt anyone. He might blow up a carpet or three, but he won't hurt a person, no matter how annoying." Raiha paused a moment to think about that, then nodded a little. "No, he won't. Besides, you lot are my responsibility, not his."

"Which is why there's extra guards in day clothes?"

That got him a dry smile.

"Link's idea. If it keeps them from acting foolish and requiring a stern hand, I'm inclined to go along with it. Were you, perhaps, eavesdropping, Scholar Raeleigh?"

Sheik flicked his gaze away, a faint flush coating his face. Raiha just shrugged a little.

"Please don't do it again, and ask the questions you came to ask. Ganon still has to finish going through the treaty with me before the meeting, so he'll be back once he's calmer."

Sheik hesitated visibly. Raiha's eyes narrowed; she was fairly sure she could anticipate all his questions, but she didn't really _want_ to. She had enough on her mind at the moment.

"He's really... the man from my memories?"

"Yes and no. The man in your dreams," and she chose the word deliberately, with enough of an emphatic bite to make Sheik blink, "was controlled by a demon, a Shade that was once part of the Demon King Demise's army. A general of a faction of it, in fact. His actions were not of his choosing."

"But... how can you be sure?"

"Remind me to point you to a book that's due out in about two months. Because really, there's no concise way to tell _that_ story."

And even trying to condense it would leave out a number of points that needed to be made, and not just by her. If Sheik was inclined towards trying to build this relationship, he was going to have to come to terms with how he felt around Ganon.

"In any case, I trust him," she finished after a moment. "And so do Link and Zelda. While we might snip and snap at one another, we don't mean any harm by it. It's not _perfect_ , but it works for us."

He nodded a little, though his expression was dubious. Well, he would either believe her in time, or he wouldn't, and she couldn't force that to happen.

"Anything else, Scholar Raeleigh?"

He hesitated.

"Are we going back to the Archives soon," he finally asked.

That made her smile a little more warmly.

"Assuming nothing extreme happens, I'll kidnap my archivists-in-training in three days. I'd recommend wearing clothes that you won't mind ditrying up instead of the fancy clothes you lot favor. If you need help finding things like that, ask Muriel, or one of the others about the secondhand shops in town."

That got a little smile and nod from him, and he bowed before he left.

Raiha leaned back on the couch with a tired sigh, then finished off her tea and curled up; When Ganon returned they would continue going over the treaty. Until then, she was going to catch a quick nap.

Ganon paced the length of the library, muttering quiet obscenities as he worked the edge off his temper. She always jabbed him with a purpose, he knew, but it really was annoying that she didn't seem to _care_ if he left or not. To even suggest that he wouldn't want to watch Tetra grow up, or see the twins take their first steps, hear their first words! To _hint_ that he wouldn't miss any of them!

When he reached the back wall he spun on his heel and stalked back, thinking he might give her a piece of his mind for insinuating such crap.

The logical part of him pointed out that she had done it on purpose to make him think about the _real_ reason he didn't want to see his people. His steps slowed a little as he considered that idea, anger making it easier to not turn away from the thought that typically made him wince.

Fear was an uncomfortable emotion; like Raiha, Ganon knew how to twist fear, turn it into anger, and make it potentially useful. But there was no enemy to fight here, this fear was entirely of his own making. And wasn't she right? They had no idea that he was the Demon King. His name was _only_ a name to them. Probably a rarely used one, considering everything that had happened in the past, but still...

His steps slowed a little more, and he stopped muttering entirely.

Had that been her point? That he was worried about nothing? He didn't want to see fear in the eyes of other Gerudo, but... _would_ he?

He came to a halt halfway through the stack, then leaned on the shelf with a frown. Raiha never said anything that didn't have a purpose. Her purpose had clearly been to annoy him enough that he would agree to meet these people, and damned if he hadn't fallen for that bit easily enough.

But the rest of it?

….A reminder, he realized after a moment. Not an admonishment about possibly neglecting what he had, but a reminder that he _did_ _have_ these things. Like she did. Maybe less of a reminder to him, in fact, and more to herself...

She had gone a long time thinking she was the last of their people... immersing herself back into Gerudo culture, Gerudo lifestyle, would be harder on her than on him. He could only _barely_ remember the customs, but she had taken them and made them a tightly knit part of herself. To find out the differences, how they had evolved without her, had to be pricking at her need to know _everything_. Not to mention the Gerudo closeness was something she had trained herself out of over the centuries...

But she had reasons to return. So did he. They were, in fact, the very same reasons.

He grunted a little in annoyance; admitting she was right was irksome, but also one of the things he was used to after five years. Damned woman was almost _always_ right. And the few times she was wrong, she was annoyingly gracious about it too!

Sighing, Ganon started back for Raiha's office. He wouldn't admit a damn thing to her now, oh no. But maybe later, if this meeting went well, he _might_ say something about it. Or he might not; she was good at letting things go, and she understood him. Strange, considering their history, but it was also true.

He took absent note of the blond male sitting on the couch with a thick book in hand, ignored him as non-threatening, and proceeded back into the office, closing the door behind him.

Sheik glanced uneasily at the closed door; Ganon had _looked_ more relaxed, but that didn't necessarily _mean_ anything. People could look calm and be seething balls of anger and temper underneath. But she had specifically told him not to eavesdrop again, and the door was _closed_ , so there would be no hiding the eavesdropping from the others if they looked over and saw him.

It made him wish he could figuring out the subtle differences of the Sheikah training that he remembered. He could perform the moves, could somewhat go through the motions—it had kept him from getting mugged a couple months ago—but for the life of him, could not figure out how the Sheikah shadow skills _worked_.

He wondered if she might explain it to him, if he asked. It was worth a thought, though certainly not _now_. While he might consider interrupting if he heard raised voices, the dreams informed him plainly that she knew how to defend herself. His own personal knowledge indicated the same.

It still galled him to sit here and not know if she was in danger or not.

Staring blankly down at the book, Sheik made himself think through thinks logically; Raiha herself had admitted to great age, and great power. No doubt she had forgotten more about fighting than he would _ever_ know, and then some when it came to magic. If she had considered Ganon a threat to her, she would take steps to protect herself.

He sighed wearily, and leaned back on the couch. He had known from the outset that these memories, these _dreams—_ which was what they were, since he'd had no personal hand in making them, no matter their coherency—would cause some trouble. It was, on occasion, hard to tell where the dream version of him ended and his real self began. He had hoped that she might be in the same boat, but she was not.

And yet she was open to trying to rekindle what had been there. The difference being that she was not looking for the old one, the one he had once been. She had clearly matured beyond the need for him, for them.

He sighed, and forced his mind back to his book; he would take things as they came. He had no other choice in the matter. All he could do now, was hope.


	6. Six

Six

He almost hadn't wanted to wake her, she was sleeping so peacefully. And it was rare to see her sleeping at all. She was often up before her lovers, and while they might see her drowsy, tired, or on her way _to_ sleep, actually seeing her at rest was a rare treat.

So Ganon studied her for several silent minutes. The midday spring sunshine was softened by the sheers over the windows, and only lightly highlighted her exposed skin, of which there was a lot. She had professed to hate sleeves, even in the damp chill of Hylian winter, so every outfit she had lacked them.

Red-gold hair glinted slightly, pushed back and away from her face, tucked behind one ear that was pointed, not round, and he admitted to himself that he missed the long braid of hair. True she hadn't worn it down often enough to make it seem impressive, but he could still clearly recall what it had looked like when it was turned loose, either by her, or by the magic. It hadn't yet regained the strands of yellow that would come with exposure to the sunlight, but that didn't make it any less lovely.

That said, the short hair that she had allowed to grow out to her shoulders—to make it easy to tie back, she had said—did suit her personality better. She had little patience for personal care, and hair was something that got in the way of sight all too easily. He was probably lucky she hadn't shaved herself bald, or mostly bald.

Her face, even in sleep, held a slightly concerned cast to it; as if she was worrying about yet one more thing that might cause trouble, might bring about a complication to a life that she had worked hard to earn. It was almost disheartening, really... for someone who no longer labored under a heavy burden, he'd thought she might look more relaxed.

His eyes traced over one sharp shoulder, silently admiring, and then down from the swell of her bosom to the swell of her belly. There were two little lives there, two little ones that he could hardly wait to meet, and would soon get that chance.

The idea that the Gerudo might hate him faded. The idea that they might know who he was, he realized, was sheer ludicrous nonsense. The idea that he would want to rule them was still a concern, but they didn't _need_ him, did they? The ones who needed him were here in Hyrule.

He thought about lightly touching her face. A lover's caress, soft and delicate, saying with that touch everything his mind wouldn't allow him to. That thought, however, was swiftly followed by the reminder that Raiha _should not_ be startled awake. _Ever._ Because when that happened, she came up ready to defend herself, and he really didn't need to look like a static accident waiting to happen again.

So Ganon made a production of walking heavily across the floor, and flopping down onto the opposite couch. He had kept the steps _slow_ , because getting too close too fast would trigger defensive reactions as well. She was awake by his third step, defensive by the fourth, then relaxed between the fourth and the fifth. By the time he hit the couch, she was sitting up, though she looked like she could have used more than the handful of minutes his pacing and fuming had afforded her.

She looked at him for a long moment, and he wondered—he always wondered—what she was thinking, what she was _seeing_ when she looked at him. Whatever it was, she rarely shared. In this case, she merely poured herself a cup of tea, then moved over to his couch so that they could continue going over the treaty.

He shifted a little uncomfortably in the chair as they waited for everyone else to arrive to the small meeting room. Zelda, naturally, was there already—this room was where small manners of state were handled—as was Link. A couple of the more sensible nobles, whose lands bordered the mountains that held back the desert, were there to stand as impartial witnesses.

No one really _expected_ the treaty to be signed today. Not even Raiha, who was leaning back in her chair with a faintly pained grimace as she massaged her stomach. It would likely have to be carried back to the council, and the elders would look it over before deciding whether they wanted this advantage or not.

To try and calm himself some, Ganon glanced around the room, picking out details as a mental exercise that Raiha had taught him.

It was an interior room, so there were no windows. The stone walls were washed with plaster, however, and covered in tapestries that depicted fanciful scenes. Some tapestries held gilded threads, or tiny gemstones to draw attention to specific details, like the eyes of a flaming dragon, or the ripple of an underwater scene.

He tried to picture Raiha making any of these and found it impossible; there was no way she would have spent her skills on something like that, was there? But that one underwater scene looked like it had to have come from her... who else would look up at the sun through the waters of the lake, and see Zora and fish?

Well, maybe another Zora, but still.

The table they were at was round, and the chairs were comfortably padded; no head and no foot meant that she wanted to treat these people as if they were her equals. He knew that hadn't sat well with some of the more conservative nobles, who wanted nothing to do with the Gerudo, and were angry about the fact that the desert wasn't only occupied by the moblins and the lizalfos.

Still, if anyone thought that Zelda _wasn't_ the head of the table was definitely mistaking the presence she had as the Queen of Hyrule. From what he'd been told, however, it was Raiha who had spurred the talks along, and Zelda had been listening more than speaking. He wasn't sure if he approved or not, since Raiha was not the queen, but _was_ a Gerudo.

He glanced at her again, and she lifted an eyebrow.

"You alright?" he asked.

"...one of them seems bound and determined to learn some traditional dances while still inside the womb," she said, her voice a mix of amusement and pain. "I'll be fine."

Ganon saw Zelda nod in understanding—of course she'd heard the conversation, Raiha wasn't more than a seat away from her—but couldn't help feeling a bit concerned anyways. He had, after all, missed out on the whole of Zelda's pregnancy, so he had no frame of reference for most of it. He glanced at Link, who was also giving Raiha a concerned look; the Hero met his glance and grimaced ruefully, nodding a little.

When he looked at Raiha again, her expression was somewhere between amused and annoyed. Despite this, he rest one hand on her shoulder to measure her level of tension. That she let him suggested she was not as achy as he'd thought, but he could feel the tight muscles under his hand.

And then the door was opened, and the four young Gerudo walked in. Briefly, he was mesmerized.

Three women and one young man, dressed... Ganon cocked his head a little as memories clashed with one another. He was willing to swear they should have been in something else, something less than the long, baggy robes and headscarves they were wearing. But they weren't...?

The robes were more sensible, he decided after a moment, recalling his trip into the desert. Even brown-skinned people could get sunburned, or sun-sickness. The pale colors would reflect the heat instead of absorbing it, and the headscarf would give some shade where there was none.

There were indents in sashes that indicated where weapons might have been stored; all taken for the safety of the queen, never mind that the Royal Sage, Queen's Champion, _and_ Master of the Guard were there. It was still basic safety. It still made him twitch a little, even knowing that he'd been the one to insist upon such measures.

Amber eyes passed over the room, noting the queen with respect, the nobles with less than that, and then lighting up at the sight of Raiha and of himself. He wasn't too sure how he felt about that, but he could practically feel the vibrant energy of the four young people, and caught himself smiling a little.

"It is good to see you again, friends," Zelda said with a gracious smile as she stood, and beckoned to the empty chairs. "Please, come and sit with us. This shouldn't take long, correct?"

She glanced at Raiha, and Ganon silently admired the way she handed the reins of the meeting over in that one simple sentence. The four settled into chairs as Raiha nodded in agreement, and pushed back their headscarves to free their hair. Raiha waited until the were settled before speaking again.

"For everyone's understanding, we'll be speaking common," she said with a dry smile.

Ganon raised an eyebrow at her, and Raiha shrugged lightly.

"When Zel's not here, we use Gelda," she replied to his unasked question. "But since she and her witnesses are, we'll stick to something everyone can speak."

Ganon's other eyebrow went up, and he saw warning flicker through her eyes. Clearly she didn't want the Gerudo knowing that she was tutoring the queen—tutoring all three of her lovers, really—in the ancient language from which Gerudo sprung. He wondered why not; after a moment he decided to ask her later.

"Vahren, Alhanie, Irina, Mirischa, this is Lord Ganon Dragmire, Master of the Guard. Ganon, these are our four Gerudo friends."

"You mean message runners," the tallest woman said dryly. Alhanie, Raiha had said. She had to be almost his own height, and towered over the other three. Her hair was a deep red that reminded him of the reekfish spine that he'd seen when Raiha had taken him up to Zora's Domain, cut short so that fluffy red curls framed her copper face. "Or delivery women."

"Ahem."

Vahren was closer to Raiha's height, and he wore his orangy-blond hair cropped close to his head, in a series of tightly woven braids. His eyes were almost as orange as his hair, and his skin was the color of rain-dampened earth, close in tone to Ganon's own. Of the four, he seemed the least at ease, and Ganon found himself wondering just how old the boy was.

"Message runners is more neutral," Irina opined, cocking her head to the side slightly. "Inclusive?"

Irina's hair was a cloud of ginger, much more blonde than red, and she came up to Alhanie's shoulder. Her eyes were a startling gold-green that reminded him of the palace cats, her skin the color of caramel, and her form was much more generous than the other three. Ganon didn't doubt for a second, however, that she was a drag on them, but it made him blink, and wonder just how much of his memories were truly accurate to his people now.

"Inclusive, yes," Mirischa replied, flicking her auburn braid back over her shoulder. She was Raiha's height, give or take an inch, or so he thought. If Irina's form was overly generous, Mirischa was all skin and bone, her skin a dusky brown shade that would have been well at home in the desert he remembered. "Vahren doesn't identify as female."

Ganon glanced at Raiha, who seemed to be waiting patiently for their chatter to die down. There was a hint of humor in her amber eyes, a surprising amount of fondness. Ganon was briefly jealous, then released the emotion with a short huff; what was the point?

"Well, you're also friends," Raiha said when they'd fallen silent, her tone amused. "In any case, these are the changes we made to the original treaty, based on the things you said, and what you passed along from your elders."

As she spoke, Ganon tuned most of it out; he'd gone over the particulars of the treaty with her less than half an hour ago, and really didn't need to hear any of it again. Instead, he studied the youngsters, and tried not to smile a little.

Vahren was definitely nervous, and possibly cold. He kept his hands tucked into his sleeves, and while he glanced up at Raiha and Ganon every now and then—and his gaze sometimes flicked to Zelda too—he mostly stared down at his lap. Though he did appear to be listening quite hard.

Alhanie was clearly the leader of this little band; she sat comfortable and confident in her chair, leaning forward to listen to Raiha's recitation with a nod of satisfaction for some points, and a faintly quizzical frown for others. She had some golden bangles on her wrists, but she kept her hands politely folded to keep them still.

Irina kept her hands in her lap, but her expression suggested she wasn't listening any more than he was. Her gold-green eyes were traveling around the room slowly, taking in, he assumed, the many tapestries hung on the whitewashed walls. Even when Vahren nudged her lightly she only seemed to pay attention for a few moments before turning back to her observations.

Mirischa, he discovered, was taking notes, and he couldn't help but nod in slight approval as she scribbled everything down in a notebook, no doubt using a form of shorthand to catch every word that Raiha was saying. She also seemed to be listening closely, and he wondered if they were nervous, or if this was something taught to all—well, almost all, he amended, glancing in amusement at Irina—of the children.

"Now, in regards to the lake," Raiha was saying as he decided to start paying attention again. "You're welcome to travel along those paths. If you need them widened for wagons, I can get in touch with the Gorons, and the Zora about that. The Zora are fine with people traveling around the lake, so long as there's no garbage dumped into the water."

"The Zora... are not here to meet?" Alhanie asked.

Raiha shrugged.

"While Lanayru province is their home, the Zora are more insular in their mannerisms. They keep mostly to themselves, so long as no one offers them threats, or tries to test the long-standing treaty the rulers of Hyrule have with the Zora kings and queens."

"Are the Gorons more hospitable?" Irina asked after a moment, making Ganon jump a little.

Raiha smirked at him, and he wanted to stick his tongue out at her, but forewent it.

"Yes and no. The Gorons are the ones you'll have to talk with to trade things like weapons-smithing, and ores. You can find several around the Market. Most of them, including their Elders, live up on Death Mountain, just inside the Kakariko east gate."

"Yes and no?" Ganon snorted a little at her answer. "The Gorons and Zora _like_ you _. You_ never have to worry about hospitality." And he leaned forward a little on the table, taking her amused smile as permission to continue. "Look, I wouldn't worry about Gorons or Zora, so long as you go through Raiha for certain requests. She's pretty much _always_ been allied with them, so she knows how to talk to get people what they need."

"You're exaggerating just a bit," Raiha retorted with dry amusement. "I can onl-"

She stopped. Frowned a little. Then slipped a hand into her pouch, and came up with a crystal that glowed in a trifecta of colors. She stared at it for a moment, then made an aggravated noise, pushing the treaty pages over to Ganon, who gave her a concerned look.

"Sorry, I have to go deal with an emergency," she said, putting the stone back into her pouch as she stood. "Ganon can finish going over things with you and answer your questions."

"Raiha?"

She glanced at Zelda, and shook her head a little.

"No, I can handle it," she said, responding to the concern in the queen's voice, and the expression on Link's face. "It just... needs to be handled _now._ Before it gets worse."

She muttered something under her breath, and the tone was threatening enough that Ganon decided to pretend he hadn't heard it, instead accepting the pages, and her reminding tap on which part they were at.

As he watched her go, he found himself not at _all_ envying the idiot that was going to be on the receiving end of her temper. Once the door closed—with a gentleness so profound it was almost worse than a bad-tempered slam would have been—he gave himself a moment to recollect his wits, find the point they had left off on, and then continued from there.

Irritated was too polite of a word. Irate was also too polite. Furious was too hot for the kind of temper she was carrying around. True, the meeting would go just fine without her, now that Ganon was relaxed enough to act like himself, _but still_.

She was heavily considering icing the idiot that had caused the problems. A summons from one librarian would have been annoying; three was just pushing it into overkill, and _someone_ was going to pay for it.

And if anyone thought she was covering concern with anger, well, they wouldn't have been wrong.

Muriel met her at the door, and the elderly woman looked... rather frazzled. Raiha dug the crystal out and showed it to her.

"Just what happened to get _three_ summons?" she demanded, not necessarily in the mood to be polite. "There had _better_ be children in prisons!"

"...I was too upset to recall the priming word," the old librarian admitted, looking somewhere between embarrassed and annoyed. "The young men in question are being held by the guards in the library. They were... well, young Scholar Raeleigh has several injuries. The other two have minor ones."

"...Din have mercy," Raiha ran a hand over her face.

"The story I gathered was that the two louts from the Collegia were once more doing what they weren't supposed to be, and Scholar Raeleigh dropped a book on one of them by accident. The book was then returned as a high-speed projectile, knocking him off the ladder. He defended himself, and at some point, someone crashed into the shelves that we haven't yet bolted to the floor."

Raiha put her head in her hands and made a pained sound.

"We just _finished_ with neatening up that section. The bolting down was supposed to start tomorrow..."

"Oh, it gets better, my lady," Muriel's voice was dry and grim. "They didn't knock just the one shelf over, it turned into a domino effect. Fortunately, when the first crash was heard, everyone cleared out of the stacks, so no one beyond those three was injured. The guards that were shadowing the troublemakers stepped in, and have them held for the moment..."

Raiha muttered a few choice words under her breath. She was willing to bet that Sheik had an equal hand in _causing_ the trouble, but the idiots from the Academia had used up their last chances and _then_ some.

"Why do scholars have their heads up their asses?" she grumbled as she stepped into the library, and headed for one of the small alcoves that held an ancient treasure. "Seriously, _why?_ "

The question was rhetorical, and didn't necessarily need an answer, so Raiha was pleased when Muriel—following her in overt concern—didn't try to offer one. She fished a small key out from her pouch, and slipped it into the rim of the case, where a lock wouldn't typically be present. This was mostly for show; the spell on the case responded to her magical imprint, and popped open without a fuss, and she pulled out the Harp of the Goddess, gently plucking a couple strings to check the tuning.

She heard Muriel gasp softly, and smiled. While the Ocarina of Time had never been on display in the library, the Harp had always been a prized piece, and the legends that spoke of it were numerous. The fact that few people could get the Harp to _do_ anything was well known, and most thought of it as only a decorative piece, or perhaps even a replica.

Raiha gently let her fingers glide along the strings, feeling the soft thrum of magic that washed away her immediate ire. After a few minutes of relearning the note placements, she started walking towards the back, idly playing the Song of Healing.

Really, they ought to have started in the back, where the older and most fragile works were kept, but the idea that people might _brawl_ in her library was ludicrous. Few people went into the far end of the stacks unless they were looking for ancient history at that, information on things two, three centuries past. So they had started at the front, with the most relevant and worked towards the back for the past five years, which had also allowed extra time for sorting and storing. True the quake was a decade gone now, and everything was mostly back in its place, but still.

The Song of Healing couldn't right the shelves, or return the books and cases to their places, but it could, and did, soothe the uneasy and the injured. It echoed through the library, rebounding from tapestry-covered walls, and the wooden beams in the ceiling; lights gleamed softly in response to the ambient magic, and there was a collective release of tension.

When Raiha allowed the notes to die away, she was standing before her three troublemakers, and her calm was mostly restored, despite the disaster she stood in the middle of.

"Ten shelves fallen," she said after a long minute, looking from Sheik, to Toril, to Isran. "Hundreds of books mixed together that will take several days if not weeks to sort out and place again. Over a dropped book."

"He dropped it on purpose!" Isran burst out, attempting to stand and being unceremoniously shoved back into his chair by the guard at his back.

"On purpose?" Raiha raised an eyebrow at Sheik. "Did you now...?"

He looked up at her, opened his mouth, then looked away after a moment. Her lips thinned slightly, and she made a faint sound of disapproval. After a moment she turned to the other two scholars.

"You two are banned for life from my library. Regardless of accidental or purposeful intentions, _you_ escalated it into a full-scale brawl and could have killed _several_ people when you knocked these shelves over. These guards will escort you to the dormitory, and then off castle ground. If you try to come back, you'll be trespassing, and we have every right to throw you in the dungeon for it."

The stunned looks on the faces of Toril and Isran made her smile. It was a sharp, angry smile, and she nodded to the guards, who pulled the stunned scholars to their feet, and herded them to the library doors.

"And this one, my lady?"

Raiha turned to Sheik, and the guardswoman at his back. Then sighed.

"Scholar Raeleigh, are your injuries healed?"

"I... think so?" he said hesitantly, glancing up at her.

"Good. My office. _Now_."

He got to his feet quickly, and scurried in the direction of her office. Raiha propped her fists on her hips and surveyed the damage, then sighed.

" _Boys_."

She at least didn't keep him waiting long, but Sheik wasn't certain if that was a kindness, or if she was more angry than she appeared. He'd known this was going to get him in trouble, and he _should_ have behaved, but he couldn't just stand there and allow those idiots—idiots from his own school at that!—to make such disparaging remarks about her.

He had the sinking suspicion that she wasn't going to see it the same way.

He hadn't taken a seat by the time of her return, hovering uncertainly at the back of the nearest couch; she hadn't _said_ to sit, and really, if he was going to be scolded, he'd rather be standing rather than to be made shorter by sitting.

So he almost jumped out of his skin when she reached out a hand that glimmered with golden light.

"Hold still," she said irritably. "I'm making sure your injuries are healed. And if you try and tell me I shouldn't be channeling magic because I'm so close to giving birth, I swear I will lose what patience I have left and _clobber_ you."

Meekly, he submitted to her ministrations. She didn't actually touch him, just walked around him, with her palm facing him as she moved it up and down.

"... right. You're healed enough. Sit."

She pointed at the couch, but he shook his head after a few moments.

"I'd rather stand, my lady."

"Suit yourself. If you're going to stand there, be so kind as to tell me _why_ you started this fracas, and don't tell me you didn't."

She took a seat and that didn't seem to really _help_ with things. He still felt about the size of a twelve-year-old with the disapproving expression she was leveling at him, and tried to come up with the right words to explain himself without sound too... well...

"I heard them talking," he finally admitted. "Being insulting towards the other librarians, the candidates, the fact that they weren't part of the group that would be allowed into the archives... They weren't being quiet."

Her eyes narrowed slightly, and he winced a little.

"I was up on the ladder, putting away some things like Riko asked me. I was... prepared to ignore them, but they started discussing you, and Gerudo in general. I wanted them to stop, so I... dropped the book I was shelving."

The corners of her mouth twitched slightly, and he had a moment of hope that his story would be amusing enough to keep him from _too_ much trouble.

"I'm guessing you didn't try to apologize for it?" she said dryly, leaning back a little on the couch with a faint grimace.

"...well, not really?" he replied sheepishly. "I told them the book slipped, and asked if they could hand it back up to me. I was coming down to retrieve it when it was thrown at my head."

She made a faintly exasperated noise, and shook her own.

"You failed at ducking, I see."

"I wasn't really expecting them to be _that_ upset. It wasn't even a thick book..."

That made her snort.

"And it just went downhill from there, I'm guessing?"

He nodded a little, and Raiha sighed.

"How did the shelves get knocked down, then?"

"...I was trying to defend myself, using the moves I could remember from my... dreams."

"You don't have the training for that sort of thing," she pointed out, not unkindly, he thought. Her tone was more matter-of-fact than anything else. "You might move like a dancer, but you're definitely not a fighter. No wonder you got your ass handed to you. They outweigh you."

He grimaced a little, rubbing ruefully at his now-uninjured shoulder.

"Yes, well..."

"You aren't the type to fly off the handle over a few words," she continued after a moment, giving him a narrow-eyed stare that made him feel rather like a pinned bug. "You said they were discussing me, and that's the point at which you decided to make them stop?"

Caught. Sheik sighed a little, and bowed his head. Of course he'd had to say that... Being anything less than truthful would just annoy her further. But he wished he'd been able to come up with something else...

"Yes my lady... I just..." He shook his head after a minute, and lifted his head to meet her eyes. "I will not repeat the things they were saying, but they were crude, cruel, and blatantly untrue! They had every intention of setting about rumors and spreading tales just t-"

"Scholar Raeleigh, let me be _very_ clear on this point," she interrupted, expression sour. "I don't _care_ what people say about me. They don't know me, they don't, for the most part, _want_ to know me, and in all honesty, aren't libel to _get_ the chance. Therefore, they repeat stupid rumors and hearsay to make themselves feel larger. Frankly, I could care _less_ about their opinions, because they aren't the opinions that matter to me. The number of people on that particular list are _very_ few, and I certainly don't need to be defended from _idiots_."

He winced again, and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Furthermore, you do seem to be quite _stuck_ in that regard, so it seems I have to repeat myself. The girl of your dreams is gone. Gone as if she were dead. I am not her. I cannot _be_ her. I do not _want_ to be her, not anymore. _Do not_ mistake me for her. She was young, and powerless. I am very much not in either respect. If I need help, believe me, I will ask for it. If I do not, _don't interfere_. Am I clear?"

He nodded, then risked a glance at her. She was irritated, but not—as far as he could tell—actually angry with him. It seemed more like she was annoyed with the situation, and perhaps his own thoughtless insinuation.

"Good. Now, as for your punishment," and he saw a thin smile cross her face as he failed at stifling his flinch. "You get to help clean up the mess. That _includes;_ lifting the shelves if you're asked, sorting the books, getting materials for the other librarians, rebinding books as necessary, running errands for the other librarians, and _no_ _archive_ _training_ until it's done."

"No... but!"

She stared at him, and he hastily swallowed the rest of the words. If he argued now, he would undoubtedly lose any chance at being an archivist, let alone earning her friendship, her love, as he so firmly wanted to.

"I apologize, my lady. This punishment is fair, and I will abide by it."

"Good. You can start no-ow... Stop it, you."

She winced, and pressed a hand to her stomach. He lifted his head a little in concern, but she waved him off after a moment, taking a slow, deep breath.

"It's fine. They've been active all day. Very kicky and unpleasant. Now then... In addition, you have used up one chance. You have two left, and I would suggest remaining on your best behavior, Scholar Raeleigh."

"I'll... do my best, my lady," he replied, wincing a little as he assumed the non-promise would irritate her.

Instead, he saw her smile in dry amusement, albeit briefly.

"Go on, get started," she said, waving a hand at him. "And... thank you. It was unnecessary, but thank you."

He bowed again, and quickly left the room, thinking hard.

He knew, in this case, he was very much in the wrong. This Raiha was strong. Her guard was always up, and she had both the magical and political power to spare. He could not take his cues from his dreams, as he had been wont to do. Because she was right, and he was very much not. He had to push those memories aside, had to see her as she was _now_ , not as she was then, and perhaps he could make up for his failings by throwing himself into the work that he had so thoroughly earned.

"...you okay?" Adriane asked, catching him by the sleeve. "She wasn't... y'know.. you're not also banned, are you?"

Sheik shook his head a little and sighed.

"I am, for the moment, not banned. I must clean up the mess I helped to cause, and I will be missing archival training until it's finished."

The girl frowned a little, but nodded reluctantly after a moment.

"I guess that's fair. I can tell you about what we learn?"

He smiled at her.

"That would be welcome. For now, I must help right the shelves, and then begin on the monumental task of restoring the fallen books."

"Do you think she's... really mad?"

He shook his head.

"I believe she is more disappointed than truly upset, and that... admittedly stings quite a lot more than the injuries I gained in that fight. And she is right to _be_ upset; I was being foolish, and prideful."

Adriane blinked up at him, then chewed her lower lip uncertainly. After a moment he couldn't help but chuckle.

"I am certain that things will work out. I simply have to work to fix my mistake."

"...well, if you're certain."

"I am."

Or at least, he _hoped_ he was. Because the alternative was just too disheartening to consider.


	7. Seven

Seven

She was clearly not in a good mood.

Given the few options open to her at the moment, thanks to her pregnancy, it probably shouldn't have been that surprising to find her throwing daggers into a wooden target. She couldn't physically fight with someone, and she was surprisingly cautious about the type and amount of magic she used, because no one really knew what magic might do to a pregnancy. No doubt if she'd been less cautious, they might've found something on fire. Or heard some very loud explosions...

Ganon had watched her for a few minutes, assessing her temper, then left her alone. Link had hovered longer, but when she had refused to acknowledge him, he also left. Not without some kicked-puppy backward glances, but he _had_ left.

Zelda, however, had stayed. Well, initially she had left briefly since she needed to do some work; after collecting a lap desk and the relevant documents, she had returned to the yard. Raiha, she had decided, might need space, but she doubted that non-impinging company would be brushed away. So she would do paperwork, and Raiha would work off her temper.

The boys had simply given up too early. Besides which, it was a nice spring day, and working outside was better than working in her study, even with the windows open. The warm sun felt nice on her shoulders, and there was comfort to be found in the steady thump of dulled knives striking and sinking into wood.

Zelda was patient. When Raiha was ready to talk, she would talk, and until then, remaining nearby but busy in a way that didn't press on the other woman was the best way to offer support.

"Am I someone who needs defending?" Raiha finally asked, on her way back from retrieving the daggers.

"That depends on what you might need defending from, dear," Zelda replied, keeping her tone deliberately distracted. "Why?"

Raiha made a faint grumbling sound, and another three daggers flew threw the air to embed in the poor, beat up target.

"That _boy_ thinks I need protection from rumors."

"Your newest headache?"

A faint snort was Raiha's reply, and Zelda smiled slightly. Who else would she call 'boy', after all?

"He got into a brawl with a pair of my troublemakers, and knocked over almost a dozen shelves that were set to start getting bolted down in two days," the redhead said, aggravation clear in her voice. "All because the brats were whining about me and making disparaging remarks, as ill-mannered children are _wont_ to do when told to behave."

"You have told him just how much political prowess you have, yes?"

The question was not as idle as it sounded, and Zelda felt Raiha's irritated stare more than she saw it.

"Why should I?" she replied. "I'm the _Royal Sage_ , I'd think it's obvious."

"The Sage title didn't come with the lands," Zelda pointed out, glancing up and giving her lover a faint smile. "You had those well before the job posting."

That got a reluctant—still aggrieved—smile in reply.

"That's not even a point to be made," Raiha said. "As far as they're concerned, I'm the Royal Sage, head of the library, the archives, and carrier of more knowledge than they'll ever guess at. Telling them I'm _the_ voice of Eldin province is just overkill. Especially since, no doubt, some of them have holdings in Eldin Province, and I really don't need that sort of deference anyways, Zel. You know that."

Raiha pulled the blades out of the target, and came to sit near Zelda, dropping the blades in a small bucket near the bench, and grabbing a waterskin as she did.

"If you splash me while I'm holding documents, I will have to get cross with you," Zelda said, frowning down at the paper.

"As if I would."

"...you would. If you thought to escape the consequences."

Raiha grinned a little, unrepentantly, then carefully poured some of the water over her head to help cool down. Zelda signed the paper with a faint nod, put it into the lap desk, then half-turned to give the Gerudo woman her full attention.

"Dear, it's not a matter of deference, it's a matter of the politics. If you were _just_ the Royal Sage, made such based on your extreme level of knowledge and ability, without anything else, you would be much more vulnerable to rumors and hearsay than you might think. If I did not know you personally, many things that have come to my attention about you would require thorough, heavy investigation, and a constant check to ensure that you are _not_ , in fact, trying to put in a plot to overthrow the kingdom, and turn it into a Gerudo haven."

Raiha blinked at her, and her mouth twisted a little in a mix of amused incredulity.

"Seriously?"

"Yes. That's not even the worst rumor," Zelda smiled a little wryly. "But it is one of the more entertaining. Dear, you can be free to not care simply because you _are_ powerful. But he didn't know that, and probably thought he was acting on behalf of your best interests." She paused, then amended, "Possibly. Knocking over the shelves is a bit overkill..."

That got her a laugh.

"Just a lot. The two idiots are banned, and the boy is going to have to miss learning how to work in the Archives until he's finished helping fix the mess he made. How'd the meeting end?"

The change in subject was lacking in subtly, especially for Raiha. Zelda went along with it anyways, because Raiha needed her to do so, and also because it _was_ something she would need to know for the future.

"Fairly well, I think. They said they would take the paper back to their elders, along with all our annotations, and the extended Ganon the same invitation as they had you. He's not _entirely_ sure if it's a good idea at the moment, but he did at least say he would think about it. Are you?"

"Thinking about it? Yeah," Raiha shrugged lightly, and rubbed her hand over her damp face, then through her hair. "I'd like for any children of mine to spend some time there, actually. Not permanent, not live there—unless they're old enough and want to—but the desert is going to be part of them, and they ought to know about that part of their heritage."

"And you want to know how everything has changed."

Raiha snickered a little, and half-shrugged.

"Naturally. Compared to the distant past, this is so progressive, I almost think I'm dreaming half the time. Male Gerudo living to see their first birthday as part of the tribe? Being a _good_ part of the tribe? I love it, and at the same time I don't really know what to think about it. I have to see it in action before I'll understand it. But that's not going to be happening for a few years at least; I have no desire to risk giving birth to the twins out there, and..."

She hesitated. Went quiet. Zelda reached out and gently smoothed some of Raiha's damp hair out of her face.

"And you want to know if you can love these children," she finished gently. "If you can love them unreservedly, instead of always holding back the way you do with the adults."

Raiha grimaced, and nodded.

Zelda knew that a part of Raiha always stood back, watchful, wary, and utterly exhausted. She even had a vague understanding as to why, though it was certainly more intuition than outright knowledge. Even after reading the journals, it was still somewhat difficult to reconcile that woman with the one who sat next to her.

Raiha was so _very_ old, and she could hardly be blamed for a desire to just lay down and sleep, and yet here she was, pressing on because she couldn't leave them. Because she had wanted this chance for happiness, to allow herself the love she had so long denied. Was it any wonder she had trouble with deference and respect? This extremely long life had been more punishment than blessing...

"...do you ever think it might have been easier to just... not come back?" Zelda asked quietly, gently resting a hand over Raiha's. "To go to that final rest you were so long denied?"

She watched Raiha blink at her in surprise, and had to work to not look away in embarrassment at how intrusive the question was. It probably wasn't a _fair_ question either, but she wanted to know.

"Well..." Raiha frowned a little, then leaned back slightly, absently running her fingers over her belly. "Sometimes, yes. Because it would have been. The boys would have loved you, you'd probably end up having something like... twenty kids together," and she laughed at Zelda's dismayed squeak, "and I wouldn't be around to get involved in this new round of madness. I'd get to finally rest, and when my soul was next born, if ever, I wouldn't carry this burden of memories, feelings, and utter exhaustion. And that is... _so_ tempting. You would not _believe_ how long I spent in the Sacred Realm trying to decide which path would be best for me to follow with my duties dealt with. Time has no meaning there..."

She sighed a little, and winced again.

"Damnit child, quit kicking me please, I hurt enough!"

Zelda had to laugh; even though this was Raiha's first pregnancy, she still had never seen her at anything less than confident. Oh, there had been times in the early months where the redhead had left abruptly, overwhelmed by emotions typically held in check, but she had approached this excursion with the same strength and ability to overcome as she had approached everything else. Including, apparently, returning to the people she loved.

"Well, it _is_ almost your time," the queen said with a fond smile. "Perhaps they are simply trying to tell you to ease up until they are born."

"Hmph."

Zelda giggled again, and leaned her head against Raiha's shoulder. For a few moments there was silence, a silence Zelda was willing to let stand if Raiha didn't want to finish.

"I guess I'm just not a person who can take the easy path," Raiha finally sighed. "They might have gotten over me, moved on... but to be fair, Ganon probably would have died on his desert excursion. Twit that he is. And Link never would have been happy as a prince-consort, or king-consort either; he's a hero, he needs to physically Do Things, not sit around with papers letting other people do the work for him. So I'm here. And here I stay, until my time winds down naturally."

"...both for yourself and the pregnancy?"

Raiha blinked. Gave Zelda a narrow-eyed stare. Then a faintly exasperated-amused shove.

"You get to laugh because you've already gone through it," she grumbled. "And you were never in doubt about loving your own children."

"I think you'll easily be able to love them," Zelda said gently. "And we all know you love us, even if you can't always say it, or even show it. We know."

She saw color stain Raiha's cheeks, and the redhead got up abruptly, scooping up another brace of throwing knives. While she hadn't intended to embarrass Raiha, Zelda would admit that it was cute the way she got flustered. It was also _rare_ , and thus far, the Hylian woman was fairly certain she was the only one who could provoke such a reaction.

Of course, the boys didn't often talk overtly of such things; Ganon was someone who let his deeds do the talking more than his words. Link just seemed to lack the ability to articulate when it came to intensely emotional moments at that.

The staccato rhythm picked up again, as Zelda pulled out another set of documentation to study, and continued for a good twenty minutes before Raiha took another break.

"If we're going to be _logical_ , if I wasn't who and what I am, I wouldn't have any of those things, and there wouldn't _be_ a Royal Sage post," she said abruptly, turning back to the original topic. "It would be a moot point."

"Maybe," Zelda allowed. "But it's not a moot point. It couldn't _hurt_ to let him know that you're just as powerful politically as you are physically and magically."

"...d'you think I was too harsh on him?"

The queen chuckled a little, shaking her head.

"No, dear. His punishment seems fair enough to me. I assume you have him cleaning up the mess?"

"Mmhm. He gets to help lift, sort, fetch, and carry until it's all squared away again," Raiha said with a nod. "And he gets to figure out again that I'm not who I was, and I never can be again."

Zelda leaned in and kissed Raiha's cheek, making the Gerudo woman startle a bit.

"I think there's parts of you that were parts of her, and those parts can be safely let loose again," Zelda told her lover. "But that's up to you. You do have a good point as well; all that time would change anyone, both for good and for ill. Is there a way to help dim the things he remembers?"

"...you know, there might be," Raiha said thoughtfully. "Though it'll have to wait until kickyfeet are born."

Zelda laughed slightly, sympathetically.

"Not too much longer, dear. And then you'll get to experience a very different sort of adventure."

"Theoretically, this one won't kill me," Raiha said dryly, absently massaging her shoulder. "Just run my far more ragged than ever."

Zelda just chuckled again, and watched as Raiha slowly got back up, scooping up the knives and heading for the equipment shed. After a moment she put her papers away, packing the lap desk up neatly, and was ready to head back inside when Raiha returned.

Sheik's head reeled a little at the information. He hadn't expected to see the lady so soon after thoroughly disappointing her as he had, but not only had she returned to the library, she had pulled him away from the work to inform him of precisely _why_ she was not in danger from harsh words and rumors like those that Isran and Toril had been sharing.

Of course, she had sent him immediately back to work after informing him of her rank, and it was all he could do to keep his focus as he helped to haul the shelves back into place so they could get at the books beneath.

A Duchess. No, not just _a_ duchess, _the_ duchess of Eldin province. The one in charge of tax and tithe rates on her lands, who had final say in certain matters of state, and who could be appealed to as necessary for aid and relief. It didn't help much that she was also considered _the_ liaison for Zora and Gorons. And now, apparently, Gerudo too.

No _wonder_ she didn't care much about what the pair had said! She had enough political clout as to be able to stand practically on equal footing with the queen herself, never _mind_ the fact that Queen Zelda was also her lover!

Or... one of them, at least.

And he wanted to see if he couldn't become part of that? It made him wonder just how out of his depth he truly might be. While his family had holdings in the Faron province, he was only the second son, his older sister's heir until she decided to have or adopt children of her own. He was only considered a political catch for someone who was of the lower levels of aristocracy...

After a moment he gave himself a mental shake; he was getting entirely too ahead of himself there. Raiha's reluctance to say anything indicated heavily that she didn't want the deference that was due her station either, something he could somewhat understand. A rank that high, combined with the age she was, no doubt made it difficult to connect with others.

He decided, after a moment, that if it was him, the formality of things would have made it impossible to connect to _anyone_. Never mind the age, the rank itself would have been allowed to come down as a protective wall, and he would have allowed it to hold everyone at a distance, even those whom he cared for the most.

That situation probably would have broken him. Or anyone else, for that matter. She was plainly made of hardier stuff than most gave her credit for, including himself. She held the title, but discarded the formality of it, refusing to let it separate her from that which she deemed important. In this case, her lovers, and the knowledge in the library and the archives.

It brought up a whole host of new questions for him. Did she have capable administrators for her lands? Did she own a manor house; did she _live_ in the manor house, or was it just a place to store things? Did she care about the rupees her people earned for her? Was she a benevolent ruler or just an in absentia one? How often did she visit, and for what reasons? How did she handle things like potential rebellions?

Thoughts and questions plagued him up until someone swatted him upside the head with a sheaf of papers, making him jump.

"We're breaking for supper now, Scholar Raeleigh," Muriel said, her expression dryly amused. "You may catch up with your fellows. Report back when you're done, if you please, and we'll continue."

"Yes madam," he said, blushing a little as he bowed to her.

His exit from the library was made with more haste than decorum.


	8. Eight

Eight

There was an owl hooting softly outside the window. It wasn't a signal, it was just a normal owl, on a warm spring night where the air smelled more of green growing things and maybe some rain. The fat that she could hear it, that it had woken her up, meant that she'd fallen asleep in her library office again.

Raiha groaned a little as she pushed herself upright with a pained wince; her couches were nice and soft, but they definitely weren't made to hold a heavily pregnant woman who felt like she was about to pop any day now, and had been suffering mild contractions for most of the afternoon. She pushed back the hair that fell in front of her eyes, and gingerly placed her feet onto the floor, waving absently at the spelled crystals that provided her light so that she could have just enough to see by, but not enough to make her see spots.

"I have really got to stop doing this until you rats are out in the world," she muttered, getting gingerly to her feet and stretching as much as possible.

As if agreeing, the muscles of her back and spine contracted again, and she grunted a little in response. Sleep hadn't helped _that_ annoyance... Well, maybe something to eat might. She was feeling hungry, and a quick snack before going _back_ to bed couldn't hurt.

It had been a quiet couple of days, she reflected as she started straightening up. The other two idiots had actually been subdued, and kept their smart remarks to themselves. Her trainee archivists had gotten the fun of exploring and cleaning up the archives—though they'd stayed in the first room at her insistence, since she didn't want anyone wandering around into pockets of unknown magic. Sheik had remained studiously at his punishment, though she'd seen Adriane talking animatedly to him as they'd all left for supper that evening.

It made her smile, just a little. It wasn't even a pained smile; if anything it was relieved. Even if things didn't work out between her and him, he might have someone he could find happiness with. That more than anything was worth enjoying. It always had been.

With the room as tidy as it was ever going to be, she closed the window, and stepped out, turning to lock the door behind her for caution's sake. So she didn't spot Sheik for another minute as she worked the key into the lock, then pushed in just the right spot to activate the protection spells. There wasn't sensitive information lying around, no, but she had an order to her personal spaces that she didn't like getting messed with.

He was, she discovered, passed out on a two person couch, a book tucked open on his chest. Since the couches weren't really made for sleeping on—and really the two-seaters were not long enough for someone who wasn't under four and a half feet—it looked relatively uncomfortable. Still...

He looked calmer when he was sleeping. Not that he didn't look calm at all times, but there was a peace. A... serenity about his rest. The low light of the library—never turned off, never closed, only dimmed down at night—highlighted the golden hair, the curve of a pale cheek...

Raiha shook herself a little, and turned her attention to his book. Then snorted in amusement; he had one of the nobility genealogy books. Was he trying to find her family line, perhaps? She wasn't in those books, not by a longshot, but that was an amusing thought to consider. Perhaps he hadn't entirely taken her at her word when she'd admitted to living a longer life than anyone could ever claim. A thousand years, plausibly more, even she wasn't certain just how many things she'd learned and forgotten.

She _had_ considered making up a family tree at one point, but had discarded the idea after a while. Better to own the truth, to keep it simple. Lies, like a family tree would have been, had their own way of taking on life, and that was too exhausting to consider maintaining. She was unapologetically, undeniably herself, and she would put on no mask.

Besides, at the time it had been too painful to consider. To pretend that she could love someone else, _anyone_ else, the way she loved Link and Zelda, to pretend that she could have children, age and die... No, better to know the harshness of the truth, and never lie than to break on that particular wall.

Impatient with herself, she rubbed a hand over her eyes to stymie the unexpected build up of tears and muttered a quiet curse about hormones in general, then reached out and gently shook Sheik awake.

He startled a little, and the book met the floor with a thump that sounded absurdly loud in the silence of the library. Raiha stifled a snort of amusement as he looked around in bleary guilt before reaching down to pick up the book and smooth out the pages.

"It's late," she said, amusement in her voice. "And you'll probably sleep better in a bed."

"Probably," he agreed, voice husky from sleep. "My apologies..."

She half-shrugged lightly.

"Nothing to apologize for. The library never closes, and other than being a bit wrinkled, you certainly would have been on time for duties in the morning."

He gave her a somewhat bemused sideways glance, and she smiled dryly. After a moment he got carefully to his feet, and swayed a little. Her smile faded and she gave him a narrow-eyed, assessing stare.

"...come on. You need something to eat before you go back to your room. We'll snitch from the kitchen."

He looked about to protest, but she was in no mood to hear it; she just reached out, and grabbed his hand as she started walking, forcing him to either be towed along like an unruly child or keep up. After a couple of stumbles, he managed to get his feet under him well enough that he was matching her stride.

Oh, she thought about letting go after a moment. His hand in hers was stiff, as if he wasn't certain how to treat it. But she was feeling particularly stubborn, and she _was_ hungry. She'd eat, escort him back to the rooms he was staying in—he hadn't yet chosen a living place off the palace grounds, and was still staying in a dormitory room. She wasn't sure whether that was pleasing or not—and then go back to bed herself.

After a few moments more of navigating the palace corridors, his hand relaxed, and even cautiously wrapped around hers. She glanced over at him, and couldn't help but smile at the hint of a blush she could see forming on the tips of his ears. Males were so cute when they got flustered. Another muscle spasm had her reflexively squeezing his hand lightly, and though it hurt a little, she saw his blush deepen, and had to stifle a laugh.

The kitchen, like the library, never really slept. They were never fully shut down, even at night, because there was always someone who might want a midnight snack, or just a warm, dry place to sit and be comfortable for a few minutes. The night cook—a large, tan-skinned woman with amber hair and green eyes—nodded to them over the bread dough she was working on, and raised no fuss as Raiha headed straight for the pantry.

"...you really are allowed to go everywhere," he said, with some mild surprise.

She tossed him a smile over her shoulder, and released his hand to grab a plate from the nearest cupboard.

"Anyone can come down to the kitchen, same as anyone can go up to the library," she pointed out, passing him one before grabbing at a few of the items that would make for a good late-night snack. "Stables, barracks... there's always people coming and going, always someone on duty. It didn't _used_ to be, but after Hyrule grew more powerful and prosperous a few centuries back, it just became the standard."

"The library has a... night shift?"

"Not really. Not in the way you're thinking; I don't have enough staff for that just yet, though I'll be opening that up to some of the new and old individuals after the twins are born."

"So..." he hesitated, as she moved towards one of the small kitchen tables that was cleared of any cooking supplies, then followed. "What guards the library?"

Raiha chuckled a little.

"Magic. It's intent-based, so anyone who goes in looking for a quiet place, or a book to help with insomnia won't be bothered. They might even be helped if they have some idea of what they're looking for. Someone who goes there to cause trouble won't even cross the threshold."

She caught the rest of the words—how it worked, what she'd attached it to to _make_ it work the way she wanted—before they could escape. Barely. Sheik nodded after a moment, then started in on the leftovers with all the single-minded intensity of a hungry young man. She chuckled a little, and started her own, though she was slower about eating.

"I noticed you were looking up nobility genealogy," she said after a moment, timing it so that he wouldn't have anything in his mouth to choke on. His startled jump made her smirk a little, though she kept her tone innocently inquisitive. "Looking up your family tree, perhaps?"

He ducked his head sheepishly, and she waited patiently to see what answer he would come up with. If he tried to lie, she hoped it would at least be an entertaining one.

"...no, my lady... I admit, I was... trying to find yours."

The truth. She smiled a little, pleased by his honesty.

"I told you, I don't have one. My life only started about five years ago. My family is, more or less, starting right here."

And she pointed to her belly, right as her muscles briefly squeezed yet again. She hissed a faint complaint, and waited for it to pass. When she glanced up, Sheik was giving her a concerned look, so she managed a dry smile.

"Including their parents, of course," she said, as the pain bled away.

"...of course," he said uncertainly. "But... why didn't you try to... create one?"

"For whom? There was no point to it. I am, or was, eternal. There was no chance of children, and anyone I came to care for... lived their lives through, while I remained a static, unchanging facet of life."

She was quiet for a minute as she had a drink of her water.

"I can't really explain it," she finally said. "But I don't like lying. I don't pretend very well, and trying to build up some sort of family history that would allow a woman with Gerudo blood to inherit time and time again from a deceased version of me... It would have fallen through eventually. It's simpler to just be who and what I am. Was."

He thought about it for a long minute as they finished off their food and drinks, then nodded a little.

"I admit, it doesn't entirely make sense to me, but you.." he hesitated. "You don't seem the type to deny who you are... If it were me, I probably would have just hidden away."

"You can only get so far in life by hiding," She smiled a little. "Sometimes it buys you time to get better, to improve in skills, but there's always a moment where hiding only hurts you instead of helping. The same can be true of not hiding, but I would rather be who I am than who I was."

Again Sheik nodded, then yawned a little.

"Ah, forgive me, my lady..."

"It's all right," she replied, waving the apology off. "It's late, and you've had a hard day of work. Come on, let's get you back to your room and-"

Another pain swept around her middle. Once it faded, she glanced thoughtfully down at her belly, and rubbed absently. Normally active, the twins seemed to be still and steady... As if waiting.

"And you can get some well-earned rest," she finished, this time ignoring the concerned look he gave. "Because tomorrow, aren't you supposed to start shelving?"

He groaned a little, and she laughed.

"Come on, the sooner we go, the sooner we both can fall into bed."

He nodded, and obediently fell in step at her side. It was a comforting feeling, if odd. She couldn't remember if he'd ever done that before... It helped that the air he exuded was similar to Zelda's; peaceful, touched with concern but not overbearing. Not eager with the feeling of an energetic puppy, the way Link was, or roiling with power like Ganon. Calm. Patient.

It was soothing.

When a hard contraction hit, it was painful enough that she grasped at his arm. The fact that he was instantly there to give support did not go unnoticed, and it was very appreciated as the knowing that was her brand of foresight hit her, making her grip on his arm tighten as the sudden influx of information washed over her. It was, in a breath, terrifying and elating all at once.

When she had her feet under her again, she loosened her grasp, and looked down into a concerned face. Despite her reservations and worries, she couldn't help but smile wanly.

"Sheik?"

He jolted, and she felt it. It was the first time she'd called him anything other than his last name, and it meant something to both of them.

"I need you to do me a favor. Well, two, really," she amended.

Immediately he nodded, even as she drew away from his support.

"I need you to fetch me two people. Zelda, and the midwife on duty in the mending wing. _Just_ them, if you can."

"Is it...?" he hesitated, anxiety and embarrassment passing quickly over his face. "I mean, are you...?"

She nodded.

"I can make it back to my room just fine, but..." she hissed a little; Zelda had said it would hurt, but she hadn't said it might progress quite so quickly. "But I'll need those two sooner rather than later."

"Are... are you _sure_ you can make it back?"

Raiha nodded again, and dug out a token from one of her pouches, passing it to him. Carved amber in golden wood glowed with a warm inner light, and as she transferred a temporary ownership to him, she saw him jolt a little. Nervous it not, it made her smile; she wondered briefly what it was he'd felt when she'd given him the token, but now was not the time to ask. Her four-hour nap had burnt through half her preparation time, and she wanted to be snug and secure before things got worse.

"You'll need this to get into the inner part of the Royal wing," she said. "Just show it to the guards, and they'll let you through. You know where the wing is, right?"

He thought for a moment, then nodded. Lightly she patted his shoulder.

"All right. Remember, just the midwife and Zelda."

Sheik nodded again, and started off at a quick clip, casting worried glances at her over his shoulder until he rounded the corner. Raiha stifled a chuckle as she heard his footsteps break into a trot, and headed back for her own rooms, where hopefully she would have a few minutes of privacy to indulge in the fear of the unknown that she could not— _would_ not—show to anyone else.

Sheik did not precisely run. But he didn't walk either, and anxiety kept him looking back at her even as he rounded the corner. She looked like she always did, though. Confident and steady, not frightened at all.

He couldn't help thinking that wasn't truly the case. For one instant while she'd gripped his arm tightly, he was willing to swear he'd seen fear flash across her face. He couldn't blame her for being afraid either; with what she'd told him, this was something entirely new, something that she personally had held no experience with.

Who _wouldn't_ be afraid?

He broke into a trot as he headed for the mending wing, clutching the little amulet tightly in one hand. She wanted only the midwife and the queen. Why not the father, or fathers? Was it even his place to ask?

The midwife was a slender, bird-boned woman with pale skin and deep brown eyes, her ashy-blonde hair tucked up neatly beneath a wimple. She had been dozing on one of the empty beds, but Sheik's message had her up and bustling in only a few moments. After being stepped on the third time, he quickly left the mending wing and headed upwards, to where the Royal Wing was situated.

People were allowed to visit the outer part of the Royal Wing. It contained the portrait gallery of past kings and queens, and other relics that were deemed safe to show to the people of Hyrule. The guards still stopped him because it was almost midnight, and the gallery was closed from eight evening bells until eight morning bells. The token did exactly what Raiha said it would do, however, and they waved him through after several hesitant moments.

He still tried not to run, or look too furtive. But he couldn't help feeling nervous as he approached the doors to the inner part of the wing, where he was once again stopped by the guards, and once more had to show them Raiha's token. He wasn't sure whether to be irritated or relieved at the fact that one guard went into the wing, and the other remained outside the door, politely but firmly refusing him entry.

Zelda arrived in a rush, trailed by Link and Ganon. Sheik took a reflexive step back, then made a hasty bow to the queen, mostly to avoid the stare of the Gerudo male.

"Where has Raiha gone?" Zelda asked.

"To her rooms, majesty. She... she said she wished only you and the midwife."

Ganon snorted a little, crossing his arms over his chest, and Sheik—who had straightened as Zelda touched his shoulder—tried to not bristle at what looked to be complete dismissal of Raiha's wishes. Zelda glanced up at the two males, then sighed.

"If she wishes only myself and the midwife, she may very well turn dangerous," she pointed out as they started walking at a quick clip back down the hall.

"Well, she can get pissy with me because I'm not being shut out of this," Ganon growled a little in reply.

Sheik fell in behind Link, who glanced over his shoulder and offered a friendly smile.

"Is he really going to ignore what the lady wants?" Sheik murmured.

"Probably for a few seconds," Link said with a faintly wry smile. "Rai's scary when she means business though. He's just worried, and wants to make sure she doesn't _really_ want us there."

Sheik shook his head a little. The idea that Raiha could be scary wasn't new, or far-fetched. The idea that she wouldn't say precisely what she meant, however, was a bit on the ridiculous side. It made him wonder just how well the Gerudo man—who looked like the ancient enemy from his dreams, and put him on edge— _really_ knew Raiha.

Despite his best attempts, when they reached Raiha's rooms, Sheik ended up in there with them. Raiha's snarl of displeasure at the sight of the males had Ganon quickly grabbing both Link and Sheik by their shirts and backing quickly out. As the door closed, Sheik saw Zelda moving carefully forward to support the taller woman, who had a hand pressed to her stomach, and a wild look in her eyes.

Then the door closed in their faces, courtesy of the midwife.

Sheik glanced at Link, and then at Ganon. The Gerudo male looked somewhere between nervous and angry, while Link seemed calm and patient.

"See?" Link said, giving Sheik a smile. "Rai's scary, and Gan knows when to not push."

Ganon shot the Hylian male a sour look, releasing their shirts so that he could start pacing the hall before the door in clear agitation. Sheik's eye followed him for a minute, then he jumped when Link clasped his shoulder lightly.

"Thanks for telling us," he said. "Don't mind Gan, he's anxious about this."

Ganon snarled something as he swung around and started pacing in the other direction. Link only grinned a little.

"I'm Link. That's Ganon. You're Sheik, right?"

"Ah... yes. Scholar Sheik Raeleigh," he said after a startled moment, bowing lightly. "I am pleased to meet you, Sir Link."

Link, to Sheik's surprise, blushed a little.

"Just Link is fine," the hero said. "Come on, we can sit on the bench here. It'll probably be a few hours."

"...you've gone through this before?" Sheik asked, though he obligingly sat when Link did; the bench was padded for comfort, and it got them out of the way of Ganon's pacing.

"Mmhm... When Zelda gave birth to Tetra, I was the only one here. Well, of our family," Link elaborated after a moment. "Ganon got back from the desert three months after the fact."

"Aren't you... worried?"

Link glanced at the door, then nodded a little.

"Rai's strong though," he said. "She'll be all right."

Sheik glanced between Link and the door that closed them out of the room, and wondered if that was born of pure faith in Raiha, or Link's desire. After a moment he decided it was a mixture of both, and admired the purity of it.

"Did Zelda lock _you_ out when she gave birth?" Ganon demanded, stopping abruptly and interrupting the conversation.

"No," Link said after a moment. "But Rai's not Zel."

Ganon grumbled a little, and resumed his pacing. Sheik raised an eyebrow, and Link smiled in resigned amusement.

"If Raiha wants Zelda, it means she wants a calming, comforting presence," he said. "Both Gan and I would be to anxious if we were in there... not to mention I think Gerudo do things like giving birth... differently. I'm not positive on that; Rai's never really alluded much to talking about the Gerudo people, or her time with them."

"Well, they are a predominant female race," Sheik said slowly. "So that could account for the lack of desire to have males in the same room. And Lady Raiha is...private."

Link nodded.

"Yeah. Rai can be pretty tough to understand sometimes, but there's always a lot of reasons for what she does. I'm okay with waiting until someone tells us it's safe to come and meet the twins."

Ganon muttered something in what sounded like Hylian, but wasn't, and Sheik glanced up, somewhere between annoyed and amused. Taken in this new context, he could see Ganon was indeed suffering from anxiety, and the pacing was his way of working it of. It still made him edgy, but at the same time he felt a small bit of sympathy too.

He also felt distinctly out of place, but wasn't quite brave enough to get up and try to leave. He didn't know if it would be taken as an insult, or not.

"You really do look a lot like him," Link said after a minute, and Sheik jumped, realizing he'd been half-glaring at Ganon.

"Like...?"

"Like the Sheik she kind of remembers."

Sheik jolted a little, and turned his full attention back on the Queen's Champion, surprised.

"She has a picture book," Link replied to the unasked question. "She called it a memory book, and the images there are done by magic, not with the pictograph boxes, or anything like that. You're not identical, but you're really close to that picture."

Sheik wasn't sure how to respond to that, beyond just blinking in surprise. There was a faint snort that was somewhere between amusement and derision from Ganon that drew his attention. Ganon had stopped pacing, and was scrutinizing Sheik through narrowed yellow eyes.

"You might _look_ like him, but you're _not_ him," the Gerudo male said flatly. "So don't be stupid about things."

Link groaned and put his face in his hands as Sheik bristled.

"Define 'things'," was the short reply.

"Thinking you have a right to her just because that old self used to know her. You don't know her. You know what she _lets_ you know, what she tells you. She's not yours and yours alone."

"Gan..."

"No more is she yours," Sheik retorted, shooting to his feet. "The lady belongs to no one, male, female, or other. Just because I recall clearly does not mean I think she desires to be with me alone!"

"Oh _really?"_ Ganon's body language suggested a challenge. "So that mess in the library, that was just an innocent accident?"

"Gan!"

Ganon ignored Link, glaring down at Sheik, who was glaring right back at him. _Defend_ whispered the memories. _Defend against the attack_.

"You can't tell my you, with your antagonistic nature, would have done differently," Sheik snapped. "Everyone knows how you make things explode, and then claim accident."

The golden eyes narrowed further, but after a moment Ganon's lips quirked slightly in something that was almost amusement.

"No, I claim intimidation tactics. I am big, imposing, and threatening on purpose. You are a scholar; you've never _lifted_ a sword in your life, have you?"

" _Stop it!_ " Link demanded, getting between them. "Gan, if you antagonize him to the point of an _actual_ fight, Rai's gonna be pissed for _months_. Cut it out! Just cause you're worried doesn't mean you need to take it out on the one person who's never been reincarnated!"

Ganon blinked down at Link in surprise. Sheik did the same. The blond hero frowned sternly up at the both of them, and though there was a bare inch between himself and the scholar, Sheik felt rather small. Judging from the suddenly sheepish expression on Ganon's face, the redhead felt similar.

"Rai doesn't expect us to all get along right away," Link continued, his tone firm. "But we should try because if nothing else, we can all agree on caring _about_ her, right?"

Ganon muttered under his breath, and Link scowled a little more.

" _Right?_ "

Sheik nodded cautiously after a moment, and Ganon followed suit, with a sigh that was full of exasperation. Still, after a moment, the Gerudo male did meet Sheik's eyes, and there was a spark of ruefulness in them that acknowledged a temper taken out on the wrong person. It wasn't _quite_ an apology, but Sheik nodded a little after a moment in acceptance; he too had taken out the unease of lifetimes past on someone who didn't deserve it.

"Good," Link stepped back, and seemed satisfied.

"You're taking intimidation lessons from her, I swear,"Ganon muttered rebelliously. "You're not allowed to do that."

Sheik snorted a little, trying not to laugh aloud at the rather petulant complaint, and settled back on the bench. Link just smiled, and seemed very pleased with himself.

"Well, Queen's Champion _is_ supposed to be about defending."

"That's not defending, that's unfair advantage," Ganon retorted, though there was more humor than ire in the words. "You _were_ trained by her for pretty much your entire life, that's _entirely_ an unfair advantage."

Link laughed a little.

"She didn't start training me until I was ten," he replied, grinning a little. "And she wasn't really gentle about that either. Plus, she was away a lot of the time, training Zelda too. So it's not like I learned anything all at once. Just in fits and spurts."

Ganon did not seem to believe it. Sheik, on the other hand, was curious.

"What is training with her like?" he asked.

"She's patient and calm," Link said, flopping rather gracelessly back onto the bench as Ganon returned to pacing, albeit slower. "Very precise, though she'll be the first to tell you precision has no place on a real battlefield. Same with fair play. A real fight against her is a scary thing, and neither of us have actually _won_ a bout."

"She fights mean," Ganon said dryly. "Even a sparring match is fraught with the chance to get bruises, and she _pulls_ her blows on those."

Link nodded solemnly.

"But she's nice about it. Mostly. If you make a dumb mistake she might mock you for a bit, but then she'll show you the mistake and help you fix it do it doesn't happen again. I guess the best way to describe it is tough but fair."

"Sometimes she throws you in the deep end without warning, just to see if you can swim," Ganon grumbled.

Link laughed, and Sheik couldn't help but snicker a little himself.

"You deserved that one," Link told his lover with a wry grin. "Just be glad she felt nice enough to fish you out."

Ganon huffed, but he did seem calmer than he had been. Sheik found he could see a day might come where he would be entirely comfortable around this man who resembled, but was not, the old enemy.

"...hey, how long did Zelda take when she had Tetra?" the redhead asked.

"A while," Link admitted, stretching his legs out. "Almost a whole day."

"You think it'll take that long for Raiha?"

"I dunno," and Link shrugged a little. "The midwife says the baby comes when the baby comes. So, we'll just have to wait and see."


	9. Nine

Nine

They were, in a word, perfect. So small and fragile, but so beautiful... Raiha smiled in faint bemusement down at the twins on her chest, the girl on the right, boy on the left. It had not been easy, even with the water to help, but the pain had been worth it, and Zelda's calm comfort—and the practicality of the midwife—had helped with the anxiety.

The water had helped as well, though it was going to have to be flushed and the tub cleansed before she could use it again. It had taken Zelda and the midwife together a bit of effort to get Raiha focused enough to get out of the tub, and dried off, bundled into a pair of comfortable pajamas before the three of them were tucked into the warm bed. Raiha remained mostly focused on her children the entire time.

Bel was darker-skinned than Naila, but they both had tufts of coppery-red hair, and while they hadn't yet opened their eyes to see the world, Raiha felt certain that at least one of them would turn up amber, if not both. The fun of Gerudo traits being dominant, and all that.

She was dimly aware of Zelda leaving her side briefly, and her return, but the touch of the queen still came as a surprise, and she jumped slightly, though that didn't disturb the two bundles that slept against her chest. Zelda smiled fondly at her, and held out a cup of water that Raiha drained after a moment.

"They're beautiful," she said softly. "How do you feel?"

"...tired?" Raiha said after a moment. "Achy..." She glanced down at the babies, bundled up in blankets. "They're so small... Was Tetra this small?"

"Well, not _this_ small, no, but she wasn't a large baby either," Zelda said, gently stroking a finger down the curve of Naila's head. "And they'll grow faster than you expect. Are you feeling up to letting the boys in? They were most anxious last I looked... and somehow, your Sheik seems to have integrated himself with minimal fuss."

Raiha blinked a couple of times, and glanced up at Zelda, who was smiling in amusement.

"There were no visible bruises on any of them, though they weren't exactly sitting in close company. I don't know yet if that's changed."

"...I thought Sheik would just... go to bed," she admitted, somewhere between confused and pleased. "When did the boys get here?"

"Oh, they've been there from the start, but you snarled at them, quite literally, and the retreat was very hasty. I'm not surprised you don't remember; they walked in after me, right in the middle of a painful contraction."

"Well, that explains the snarl," Raiha mumbled, feeling somewhat embarrassed. "I just..."

"I know, dear. You wanted privacy," Zelda kissed her forehead. "Do you want me to send them all to bed?"

"...no. I think I can stay awake long enough for them to meet the babies. I make no promises about staying awake _longer_ , but... but this, I can do."

Zelda smiled softly at Raiha, nodded, and slipped quietly out of the bedroom, while Raiha's attention was one more diverted by the sleeping twins. These two tiny, perfect little things, had come from her. From _her._ It just hadn't seemed at all real...

Zelda stopped briefly in the outer room, and allowed herself a moment to just watch the spread of a slow, warm smile as Raiha looked down at her children. The expression softened the sharp lines of the Gerudo woman's face, revealing the girl that had never truly been gone, but had only been safely walled away until such time as she could find a new reason to emerge.

She really was beautiful...

After a moment she shook herself, and went to pull the door open. The three young men were sharing the somewhat cramped bench, and all three were dozing, leaning against one another. While the labor hadn't been particularly _hard_ , it had been very long, and it was close to five bells of the afternoon. Considering that labor had begun at almost midnight, and the day prior had been a long one for them all, it wasn't too surprising to see. What _was_ surprising was that Sheik was leaned against Link, who was leaned against Ganon, who apparently had stretched out an arm to wrap around both of them.

Zelda wished, for a moment, that she had a pictograph box; Raiha would have loved to see this, even if only after the fact. After a moment she just shook her head, and reached out to jostle the tall redhead gently.

Ganon startled a little, his arm falling away from the two Hylian males as he sat up properly, amber eyes filled briefly with unease as he looked at Zelda. Link made a faintly complaining sound, but sat up, and Sheik pushed himself upright with a somewhat embarrassed glance down at the floor.

"She's fine," Zelda said with a smile. "And the babies are too. She said you could come and see them now, if you were wanting too. Only for a few minutes, though. She needs to rest after all that hard work."

"If she thinks we're crowding her..." Link hesitated.

"One at a time," Ganon said firmly. "We don't need her going scary mother on us."

Sheik snorted a little at the descriptor, standing up and out of the way. He would have left entirely as Ganon walked into Raiha's room—Link trailing behind like a puppy, though he stopped in the doorway of the main room—if Zelda had not caught him gently, firmly, by the arm.

"She'll want to see you too," the queen said, blue eyes lighting on Sheik's face. "While she might be afraid of losing what there could be between the two of you, I think this will not cause any sort of harm. Especially if you hope for the same."

"...because if it comes to it, I will be helping, Majesty?"

She smiled warmly.

"Even so, Scholar Raeleigh," she said, her voice light and fond. "I am pleased to meet you, to be truthful. She was not looking to introduce us to you until she was sure of which way emotions might swing, but I am glad that this was brought about."

He inclined his head slightly.

"...as am I," he admitted. "I see in Ganon's face the echo of the enemy I dreamed about, but his voice and his actions are... different. He is passionate, but he is not cruel. Protective is more what I would think."

"It helps to think of those memories as nothing but dreams," Zelda told him gently. "As Raiha has suggested, yes?"

"Not so much suggested as heavily implied," Sheik replied, smiling faintly. "I think I understand the reasoning, however. The Hero is not the same. Neither are you, if you'll pardon my boldness. It stands to reason that such things are flawed by lack of knowledge..."

"Ganon has been working on something that might help," Zelda said after a thoughtful moment. "I'll ask him later if he would be willing to let you read it."

"Read it, Majesty?"

"You may call me Zelda when we are in company," she said with a graceful smile. Sheik's eyebrows rose in surprise, and her smile deepened with an amusement that looked almost like Raiha's for a moment. "If I may call you Sheik?"

Reflexively, he nodded.

"Then that is settled. As for what I was speaking of, Raiha once wrote journals of particularly trying events. We were allowed to read them not more than a few months ago, and Ganon took on the duty of translating it into the words that Link and I can read. I think you might benefit from reading the Ocarina Tale, and one other, though I am not yet certain of the title the story of what happened ten years ago will be."

Sheik nodded again, feeling a bit overwhelmed. He had not expected to be accepted by Link and Ganon, and yet he had somehow done just that. And now Queen Zelda herself was indicating that this was not bothering her either!

"...do you... forgive my asking, but do you ever feel... jealous of one another?" he finally said, a little anxiety creeping into his tone despite his best efforts.

"We are family," Zelda responded gently. "We may not always get along, and we may not always see things the same way, but we are a family. Sometimes, yes. We are all approached differently, but we are no less loved by her than we are loved by one another. We talk. Sometimes we fight. We are only mortal, after all, and not a single one of us is perfect. But we do our level best, and most of the time, we can come to a non-argumentative solution."

She was quiet for a moment as Sheik absorbed the words, then nodded, almost as if to herself, he thought.

"Raiha is very difficult," Zelda said quietly. "Her life has been very lonely, very fraught. She doesn't handle intense, complicated emotions very well. She tries, I will credit her on that, but we all know that there are days where she can't speak to anyone, about anything. Days where she simply leaves, and all we can do is wait for her to come back. Despite this, if we truly need her, she is there. So try not to take harsh words, or abrupt changes in topic too hard; she is trying. Whether she will ever fully shed that side of her, I do not know. I do not _think_ so, but only time will tell on that note."

Sheik silently pondered her words, and Ganon emerged from the room, a small, almost silly, smile on his face. Link went in as the tall redhead made his way over to Sheik and Zelda, then yawned and rubbed a hand over his face.

"It's entirely not fair that you still look as fresh as a daisy," Ganon said, looking down at Zelda.

Zelda only smiled, and offered a delicate shrug.

"You are pleased then?"

"I didn't realize how tiny they would be," he said after a moment. "I don't think she'll offer to let anyone but you hold them until they grow a bit more."

The queen giggled.

"Oh, that will change, and you will be amused by the speed at which it does."

He grunted a little. Slanted a glance at Sheik, who only shrugged slightly; he'd never been in much contact with young children either. Especially not newborns, though he supposed once his sister wed that would be swift to change.

"For now, I think you should get some sleep," Zelda continued. "I'll stay with her for a few days until she's feeling stronger and more... able. I think it will help her."

Ganon hesitated, then nodded in acceptance, stifling a yawn.

"Probably for the best," he sighed. "If Link or I hover, she'll get snarly. And now that they're _born_ , she can get snappy with the magic too..."

Zelda covered her mouth to muffle her giggles this time, as Sheik blinked a little in confusion. Ganon slanted him another glance, and seemed to be debating something, then snorted a little.

"Never try to open her door while she's not there," the taller man said dourly. "She shock-wards the door."

Sheik thought about it for a moment, then coughed so that he wouldn't chuckle. Strange truce aside, he was fairly sure that the Gerudo male would object strenuously to him laughing about the mental image he had conjured up.

"Duly noted," he said, and was pleased at the graveness of his voice.

Ganon grumbled as Zelda's giggles increased.

Link emerged after another few moments, looking pleased himself, then motioned for Sheik to go in. The scholar hesitated, and Ganon gave him a not-so-gentle shove in the proper direction.

"Go on," he said gruffly when Sheik turned to look at him in surprise. "She'll only feel anxious if she can't show off the twins to you. Might as well get it over and done with."

Link rolled his eyes, and gently pulled Sheik forward the rest of the way.

"She did ask if you wanted to," he said with a smile. "But if you don't that's okay. She's pretty tired."

"I can _hear_ you," came the somewhat snappish call from beyond the right-hand archway.

"I know~"

There was a series of mutters that were too low to catch. Link grinned a little—rather giddily pleased, or so Sheik thought—then gave the scholar a light push on his shoulder. Cautiously, hesitantly, Sheik moved through the cozily warm first room to the bedroom beyond.

She looked, he decided, absolutely exhausted. But there was an element of pure joy that even her grouchy complaints couldn't entirely diminish, and after a moment she motioned him closer with her head. He approached with caution, well-remembering the somewhat wild look she'd had when they'd all been snarled out of the room, but she appeared as in control as ever, only giving him a tiredly tolerant smile when he stopped at the side of the bed.

"They're lovely," he said after a moment, looking down at the two children she held. "Are you...?"

"I'm exhausted," she admitted quietly, her amber eyes half-lidded. "But. This is Bel," and she shifted the boy in his gold and crimson blanket. "And this is Naila." The girl this time, wrapped in gold and lavender. "Thank you, Sheik. Even if you couldn't... keep the boys from coming too."

He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

"I did try..."

"I don't doubt. They are stubborn boys..." and her eyes closed. "But they are mine..."

Quietly he backed out of the room as he breathing evened out. Zelda smiled at him a little as he re-emerged from the room. Of Link and Ganon, there were no sign, and he assumed they'd gone off to some well-deserved rest.

"You should get some sleep as well," Zelda said, resting a hand lightly on his arm. "They days to come will be long and tiring; you'll undoubtedly need it."

He blinked at her in surprise, and Zelda's smile deepened.

"Whether or not things bloom, I believe you are already well on your way to becoming part of our family. Which means," and her eyes twinkled in weary amusement, "that you may well be called upon to play papa every so often."

He thought for a moment that perhaps he should feel resentful of that. After a moment he just offered Zelda a small smile of his own, that was almost surprising in its shyness.

"I think I would like that very much, m... Zelda."

The queen smiled,and then gently pushed his shoulder.

"Go on now. Get some food, and some rest. When you're needed, you'll be found."

Sheik bowed, and stumbled down the hallway; his bed would be nice and soft, and he was looking forward to falling into it.

Zelda shook her head gently as she watched the scholar stumble away, and stifled a giggle as he almost ran into a guard from being too tired to walk straight. Link had walked almost the same, though Ganon had been in better possession of his coordination, and had steered Link off in the correct direction.

After a moment she headed back into Raiha's rooms; like her lovers, she was going to get some sleep so that when the babies raised their voices in their first cries of need, she would be there to give Raiha some guidance.

And wouldn't that be a first?


End file.
